Dashboards Don’t Lie – 10 Reasons You Should Run Your Company with Data

Running a company isn’t easy… Executing double digit growth year over year is even more difficult. There are employee challenges, inventory issues, client demands, and just not enough hours in the day!

How do you know that you are making informed decisions throughout the non-stop day? In our digital economy each step provides data, but the challenge becomes seeking the data that is key to making informed decisions.

If you aren’t utilizing a metric based approach to running your business from dashboards and KPIs chances are other’s will outpace you, by utilizing information to their advantage.

We compiled a List of the Top 10 Reasons you should be running your company utilizing a metrics-based approach with modern dashboard technology:

Improves employee performance – In sports we keep score for a reason… Successful coaches look at each detail leading to the score… Rebounds, assists, blocked shots, turn-overs, etc. When a leader has easy visibility and insight into all aspects of their business, they are able to see how well their employees are performing. When employees know their CEO is monitoring their work, they tend to step up their game and boost their efforts.
Allows for managing by exception – Provides leaders the ability to focus on identifying cases that deviate from the norm are able to and need to be cared for in a unique manner, typically by human intervention. Problematic issues are identified rapidly and managers are able to use their time and energy more wisely for important issues rather than for less important ones that could provoke delays in their daily operations. Managers can be alerted and step in when a problem occurs without micro-managing.
Saves time and money – When leadership has real-time access to numbers not only does it cut down on time to compile the reports, but also cuts down on the time for the leaders to review the numbers. With modern dashboard technology, managers can view the data on their tablets and smartphones from any location at any time of day.
Enhanced monitoring of goals and achievement – By following real-time results from a dashboard, a CEO can quickly judge whether or not their business plan is being followed, and easily determine if the company is on track for achieving its goals.
Makes data more useful – Viewing data analytics visually makes the information much more digestible and allows for easy identification of trends. Dashboards provide the opportunity for ongoing improvement, allowing executives to measure information they otherwise might have overlooked.
Removes human error – With analytics and real-time data, it is easy for a manger to make decisions based on the facts rather than gut feeling. Dashboards also make it easy to share important data with others in the company, creating much more efficient workflows while reducing the amount of miscommunication that often accompanies this process.
Focus your company on priorities that matter – Displaying your data in a dashboard format requires you to prioritize the metrics that are most important for your business. When all of those important metrics are “in your face,” you’ll be more likely to focus on them and make decisions that have higher impact for your business.
Will integrate various operations of your organization – With the growing complexity in many organizations, it can be difficult to have an overview of what is most impacting your company’s growth. A dashboard brings together all of the information from your company into one place.
You’ll do more than evaluate the past—you’ll learn from it – Dashboards will help you start seeing trends and making correlations between actions and results. You’ll learn a lot more from your metrics if you see them organized and in the right context. These learnings will help you better run your organization, invest in the right areas and improve your offerings.
It will prepare your organization for the inevitable future – A modern dashboard will help you start seeing patterns in your data. You’ll be able to anticipate trends, which will prepare you for the future. Today, with the business landscape changing fast, being able to forecast the future and take precautions to prepare your company to take advantage of new trends is crucial for the success and ensures your organization isn’t the next Blockbuster.

At Meridian, we provide business advisory and technology services, helping organizations bring together all parts of their organization into NetSuite. NetSuite is the #1 cloud-based unified business management suite, encompassing ERP/Financials, CRM and ecommerce for more than 40,000 organizations. Bringing together all of the organizations data and processes in one platform provides deep analytics and dashboards to drive the future growth of the business.

If you are interested in learning more about how NetSuite can help grow your business, please call 913-481-7309 or email Sales@MeridianBusiness.com.