Business Intelligence, Data visualization, KPI
Performance controlling is one of
the crucial aspects of company management. Today's business constrains
managers to pay attention to every detail. In case of tiny companies,
it still seems quite simple. Problems begin when there's a large or
even worldwide company to manage - tens of departments, thousands of employees – everything on one's shoulders.
What to do then? Is it even possible to control the whole enterprise? Or maybe separate
departments should be left to decide on them themselves?
It depends on the management philosophy, nonetheless - regardless of all philosophies - a noticeable touch of control from above must remain kept.
The use of which software will help? Business Intelligence tools? Performance Management suites?
There are a lot of things that
we could compare company management to. Let's think about flying an airplane.
During a flight, we need to attach weight to every detail – speed, height, fuel, engines work, wheels, and so
on. In a word, there are plenty of factors. Let's
say that fuel tanks are located in the back of the plane. On the other hand, the engines are attached to wings, and wheels – of course – are under the plane. Due to these elements' arrangement, to check all of them we would be constrained to walk a few times along
the plane, stand on a wing, and hang under the machine after all.
It is unrealizable, and – moreover - even if it was, it would take far too much time.
This is where the role of plane dashboard gets introduced. Thank to the dashboard, all the needed
parameters might be checked immediately, at one place, without a need
for getting out of the cockpit. That's a great facilitation for
pilots, isn't it? Let's get back to business.
Having a large company that consists of numerous departments, we need to make all of them cooperate to increase whole company's general efficiency and performance.
If we think of a worldwide company, each department might be thousands miles from another. It's impossible to manage them, visiting each department personally as it would take a lot of time during which all data becomes out-of-date.
Occurred a need to concentrate whole management at one place. And
here comes the role of business intelligence dashboards in business management.