In today’s competitive world data is the new currency. Businesses compete on data. Whether increasing return on investment (ROI) or boosting manufacturing or even enhancing customer relationships, businesses want to improve their bottom line using data driven insights. A business dashboard help present such volumes of data into meaningful and summarized information right at the top. Top class?
When we talk about Business Intelligence we know it deals with the tools and techniques that are used for structuring and analyzing an unstructured group of data to trigger a meaningful action to derive new strategic business opportunities. There are basically four types of known tools they are as follows: Dashboards, scorecards, reports and analysis tools. In this blog I am going to highlight the concept of Dashboard and the importance it holds for the ISVs.
Dashboard concept:
Coming to the business dashboards… just as the car dashboard displays crucial information while you are driving, such a cumulative dashboard is even necessary for running your business efficiently. Like the car dashboard displays the RPM, speed and fuel level of your tank, etc. i.e. the critical information that you need to know and keep a track while driving, similarly businesses need to keep a proper track of their key metrics and help drive effective decisions based on that.
However unlike a car dashboard, it does a lot more than keeping a real time record of events occurring. A dashboard is a visual representation of the most important and relevant information needed to achieve a certain objective; consolidated and arranged on a single piece of screen so that the critical information can be monitored at a glance.
building a dashboard…
Building a business dashboard is no rocket science. There are readymade dashboard components available in the market like charts, tables, newsfeed, gauges, maps etc. that empower you to build complex dashboards within a couple of days. With a clear understanding of what information will you need and with the appropriate tools needed to do it, you can easily embed a sophisticated dashboard into your product as well.
How Dashboards help the ISVs?
Here we are precisely going to talk about business dashboards and their importance for ISVs. So it is important for us to draw a clear picture of both the terms – dashboard and ISV.
To give a one liner ISV or Independent Software Vendor is an organization which specializes in making and selling software for niche markets.
On the other hand the information dashboards are basically the summary or gist of an operating organization. As said earlier the dashboards perfectly blend the past, present and future scenarios of an organization.
- When we talk about the ISVs, on one hand it portrays the history of the organization, on the other hand it displays the present scenario of the ISVs i.e. it provides a continuous monitoring and feedback of the present performance metrics. And at the background i.e behind the simple interface lies the system which is used for predictive analysis for future. So ISVs can do proper analysis through these dashboards and make a clear comparison between the past and present statistics to draw a clear strategy for the future.
- More and more enterprise decision makers need analytical capability. While performing the tasks in CRM or other business applications, they are looking for better visibility and reporting and much quicker and easier access to performance metrics. Due to this ever growing interest and increasing advantage in analytical engagement, ISVs are no more oblivious of the fact that providing these capabilities will help them differentiate themselves from the rest and thereby upgrade and enhance their competitive edge.
- There was a time when statisticians were marked for gathering data over many months, then spent days to make the data sets presentable for marketers. But the new generation digitalization has greatly upgraded the scenario, the dashboard represents the data into table, graphs, etc. and helps the decision makers to draw inference appropriately. Dashboards will also help ISVs to strengthen the overall value of their product portfolio and attract potential prospects.
- From Sales point of view:
When we talk from the sales point of view the dashboards can pretty much prove to be the USP. Customers look, compare and then choose. So definitely if your product has an exquisite dashboard with configurable items and the one whose look and feel can be customized according to the requirement you can be sure to nail it. Thus the ones with strong and empowering dashboards is clearly going to attract more prospects which in turn will increase the ROI.
On an ending note:
Software teams can build extremely powerful and meaningful business dashboards with advanced capabilities into their products in a matter of days. Users will definitely benefit from higher levels of productivity. They will have a better experience and data-driven decision making. ISVs on the other hand, will be able to create a competitive edge for themselves. They at the same time can broaden their customer base and demand higher prices. Proper decision making will lead to higher customer satisfaction, brand loyalty and lifelong partnerships and in the end it will be a win-win situation for both the parties.
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Resources:
http://www.fusioncharts.com/whitepapers/downloads/Dashboards-as-Competitive-Advantage-for-ISVs.pdf
http://www.eweek.com/small-business/dashboards-reports-among-most-popular-embedded-analytics.html
http://www.dashboardinsight.com/articles/digital-dashboards/fundamentals/what-is-a-dashboard.aspx
Ajeet Singh
