Is your business intelligence solution producing useful reports?

A business intelligence solution gives companies a competitive advantage, but only if they are making the most of the information they’re presented with. If your dashboard software is producing out of date reports, while neglecting other critical areas of the organisation, then you should be looking closely at your chosen solution.

Your business intelligence software should bring you the right information when you need it. The data it presents should play an active role in the decision-making process. Regular reviews and asking hard questions of your business intelligence solution are critical to ensuring it remains useful to users and relevant to the organisation. Such questions should include, “are my current analytics helping in the decision-making process?” Your analytics won’t be beneficial unless the information is provided to users in a timely manner, which allows them to promptly take action. If this is not the case, or it was relevant in the past, then you may need to reconsider your business intelligence solution.

It’s also critically important that the data being presented can be easily understood. The effectiveness of your business intelligence application will be greatly reduced if users are struggling to interpret charts and graphs, which will impact the speed with which decisions are made.

Quite often users will benefit more from a business dashboard that is configured to focus on just a few KPIs or metrics. If users are presented with rows of charts and tables, it can be overwhelming, dilute the data and make it too generic. Aggregating metrics, or narrowing down the list to just 3 to 5 KPIs, and building it up gradually, can make a business intelligence dashboard far more compelling for users.

Presenting your users with specific and actionable data will ensure they use it regularly. By regularly reviewing these metrics and auditing your dashboard, it will ensure you get the most from your business intelligence solution today and in years to come. The panintelligence (http://www.panintelligence.com) dashboard is easy to configure and deploy, self-service in nature and very flexible, which keeps it focused on the user and their experience.

Editor’s Note: Panintelligence (http://www.panintelligence.com) is represented by the search engine advertising and digital marketing specialists Jumping Spider Media. Please direct all press queries to Louise Byrne. Email: louise@jumpingspidermedia.co.uk or call: +44 (0)20 3070 1959 / +34 952 783 637.