Executive Dashboards: Factors To Consider When Choosing A Business Dashboard

By Author: Stella Carter
Total Articles: 61
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Not all executive dashboards are created equally. To get the most for your business intelligence solutions, it's important to choose a business dashboard that will effectively handle your data needs while presenting the data in clear to understand charts and graphs. Here are a few factors to consider when choosing executive dashboards.

Scalability
Once you realize the power of business intelligence solutions, your need for them will increase. The more data you analyze, the more that needs to be analyzed. That's why its so important to choose executive dashboards that have a flexible range of scalability. It's essential to address expanding capacity needs with a business dashboard that has room to grow. Otherwise, your data is tethered before it even leaves the ground.

Unlimited Access to Data
It's easy to find a business dashboard that access common or widely used systems. However, if your data ports include some that are antiquated or obscure, finding a vendor of executive dashboards that can easily access and report on the data can be challenging. It's important to leverage a business dashboard that ...
... has high compatibility, even to older systems. Data has a trail. Even if it used on antiquated devices, it's still important.

Predictive Analytics
Most businesses use data as a form of crystal ball. Indeed, planning the future relies on accurately analyzing data from the past. Choose a business dashboard that includes predictive analytics measures. You'll find a host of sophisticated algorithms and formulas that comb data for patterns and trends, and then use those patterns to show the road ahead.

Visualization
Enterprise data can be especially complex and confusing. It's important to be able to present it in a way that is visual. Most executive dashboards offer basic visualization options such as simple graphs and charts. However, you'll find more advanced executive dashboards that automatically create matrixes, scatter plots, histograms and maps. To get the most understanding of your data, you'll need to see it. Choose a system that makes your data visually enticing as well as understandable.

Financial Reporting
Legislation has become increasingly stringent. It's important to have data that you can trust, and that can be accessed immediately in the face of an audit. Make sure you use executive dashboards that use clear templates for easy to understand balance sheets, profit and loss statements. The data should always be at your fingertips on your business dashboard. It's can be very reassuring when the law comes knocking at your door.

Wayne Nocetti is the author of this article about choosing business dashboards and executive dashboards.