The dashboard of a car is there to provide a sense of security and clarity to drivers. It lets you know how much gas you have, the approximate mileage on your car, and whether your car is in need of service. These are all incredibly useful functions that enable drivers to remain on top of car maintenance and more efficiently respond to issues facing their vehicle. But dashboards aren’t only useful for drivers. Business executives can also leverage the organizational clarity that a dashboard provides.

What is a management dashboard?

A management dashboard is a tool for business executives that can help to display all of the critical information and data that your business needs to manage the company from a single place. It provides a clear and concise location for navigating through a variety of business functions, providing a consolidated picture for managing business activity.

What should a company have on their dashboard?

Company dashboards will vary based on the size and needs of each enterprise. A smaller company may have one dashboard that tracks important activities across the organization.  A larger company may have different dashboards for different departments or functions, with an executive dashboard that provides an overview of the entire business. Commonly, dashboards include:

• Visual presentation of performance measures
• Relevant metrics and analytics to allow the ability to identify and correct negative trends and measure efficiencies/inefficiencies
• Progress toward goals
• Drill-down to more detailed data
• Items in need of immediate attention

While every dashboard will be different, the key is creating a convenient location that, much like a car dashboard, will keep you informed of all of your most critical business processes simultaneously.

The importance of integration

Some businesses operate with a concept called ‘data silos.’ What once sounded like a good idea has proven, in the long run, to be detrimental to smooth, coordinated operations. Data silos segregate departments or software applications. In order for your business to have a clear view of sales, finances, or the customer, you need all financial and operational data integrated together. An executive dashboard affords a view of all of your critical business data in a single location, by displaying all the pertinent, overview data from each business department or division.  The dashboard can greatly improve your ability to manage with a clear view of how all of the components are operating in sync (or not).

Improve sales intelligence and performance management

One of the key benefits of a dashboard is that it makes it easy to monitor your business performance. In the same way that a car dashboard makes it easy to monitor the overall needs of the vehicle, a business dashboard can help to monitor performance, enabling your company to continually adjust and respond. Your business dashboard software will provide you a single source of truth, that integrates relevant data from all departments to improve the visibility of the data. In turn, you’ll be able to manage sales, customers, and operations more efficiently and know where adjustments most likely need to be made.

Dashboards are everywhere we look. We have dashboards on our cars to monitor automobile performance. We have dashboards on our phones and computers to efficiently navigate functions. For businesses, dashboards are critical. They can improve both the efficiency and flow of business processes, by integrating your data and providing you with a single platform from which to manage your most critical areas of business. Learn more by contacting us today.