Data visualisation tools can bring plenty of benefits to both SMEs and large enterprises. Let’s look at what you need to know about the state of data visualisation in 2019.
Data visualisation is not just a throwaway phrase used by industry experts and business professionals to make you feel inadequate. Businesses nowadays, regardless of size and industry, generate a significant amount of data. In fact, the global annual rate of data production back in 2015 was estimated at 5.6 Zettabytes, almost double the growth rate just three years previously.
But despite the enormous amount of data created by individuals, mobile devices, computers, internet-enabled machines, and other sources, it doesn’t necessarily provide stakeholders and decision makers with usable insights on its own.
The generated data must be collected, organised, and made comprehensible before it can be analysed and acted on. Raw data requires several processes before it can provide executives and decision-makers any meaningful value, which will enable them to make well-informed decisions quickly and efficiently.
In recent years, data visualisation has become a faster, more effective tool for communication as well as motivation. With that being said, here are six benefits of data visualisation that SMEs need to know before deciding whether to invest in solutions such as data warehouses.
Data in visual form is processed quicker and more effectively
The human brain is programmed to react better to visual cues. As a result, visual content is processed much faster and easier when compared to written content. A recent study conducted by the Pennsylvania School of Medicine shows that human retinas can in fact transmit data at the amazing rate of about 10 million bits per second.
According to the study, the retina is actually a part of the brain that has grown into the eye. And it’s this concept, the fact that the human brain can recognise and interpret images quickly, that data visualisation taps into.
Here are a few more statistics that prove the effectiveness of data in visual form:
- According to a study conducted by MIT, 90% of the data transmitted to the human brain is visual. Moreover, our brains can effectively process an image in just about 13 milliseconds.
- The University of Minnesota has found that human brains process image-based data 60,000 times faster than they do text-based information.
- Finally, according to Piktochart, at least half of the human brain power is active in processing visual data.
In the digital age where people are inundated with large volumes of data daily, visuals enable decision makers to quickly and effectively process raw data to find the most relevant information they can use to make the best decisions possible.
Faster and easier access to important business insights
Data visualisation tools can help businesses boost their ability to seek the information they need anytime, anywhere. And with the right solution, these businesses will be able to do so more efficiently than their competitors.
A recent study reveals that decision-makers who use data visualisation tools are 28% more likely to discover relevant information than those who depend almost exclusively on traditional managed reporting and simple dashboards. In addition, 48% of employees who use business intelligence alongside visual data discovery tools manage to access the data they need without the aid of IT staff.
But why is fast and easy access to useful information crucial to your business?
According to Bain, businesses with the most advanced and fully capable analytics are two times more likely to be among the top financial performers in their industry. In addition, these companies are five times more likely to make those crucial decisions faster and more effectively than their competition.
Teams can communicate findings in more productive ways with data visualisation
Most business reports are formal documents, filled to the brim with static tables and charts. As comprehensive as these reports may be, they become so elaborate that most of the information is lost or fail to get the attention of the people whose opinions matter most.
On the other hand, reports generated from big data visualisation tools make it possible for relevant information to become more vibrant and memorable to decision-makers. Such tools allow users to encapsulate otherwise complex data and make it more palatable for executives and business managers.
Through graphics, decision-makers will be able to easily interpret large amounts of data from various sources by way of interactive elements and constructive visual tools such as fever charts and heat maps, to name a few.
Data visualisation tools identify insights that may otherwise be missed in traditional reporting methods
Implementing data visualisation tools in conjunction with traditional dashboard reports can go a long way in seeing the bigger picture of the current situation. Once teams and manager identify the relevant information and key performance indicators they want to have visualised, the right solution can generate the appropriate visualisations without any fuzz.
A few examples of data visualisation reports include call-time per customer, deals closed by sales rep, sales person/product sorting, sales by period, individual accounts, and/or pipeline deals.
Quick and easy identification of the latest industry trends
The large volumes of data that businesses are now collecting – about market conditions, customer behaviour etc. – can provide decision makers with valuable insights into potential revenue and business opportunities. This is, of course, if business leaders can spot and identify said opportunities hidden in a mountain of raw data.
By using data visualisation tools, decision-makers and stakeholders will have the ability to easily spot changes in customer behaviour and market trends across a multitude of data sets much more quickly and efficiently.
Boost revenue with predictive sales analysis
Most visual data discovery tools can provide users with real-time information, which can be used to initiate advanced predictive analytics for sales figures. Decision-makers will have easy access to up-to-date sales figures, and they will be able to determine why certain products are more popular to target customers while others are not.
You see, data visualisation is all about finding the right information to help managers and executives make the right decisions. But finding the right information is hard when the flow of information from different sources becomes too much to handle.
Through real-time data visuals, you will have the ability to perform advanced predictive analytics for various aspects of your business. This, in turn, will allow you to create projections based on up-to-date data and will help you improve marketing strategies, add or remove items on your inventory based on their popularity among your target customers, and provide a better experience for your consumers. And all of these will ultimately help to bolster your revenue.
Take the next step with YourShortlist
Data visualisation allows sales representatives, marketing teams, and business executives to easily detect patterns in large volumes of disorganised data. By using visual data discovery tools, organisations can effectively keep track of not just sales performance, but team and personnel performances, business conditions, and marketing trends as well.
Are you ready to take your business to the next level? YourShortlist offer expert, non-chargeable IT buying advice to help you find the right solution for your requirements. Our data experts can offer a shortlist of vendors, all of whom can offer an appropriate solution depending on your needs.
Simply leave your details on our contact page, and we’ll get back to you with your next data visualisation options. Are you ready to take your business to the next level?