Focusing on relevant, actionable data is easier to manage when you can prominently display it on your dashboard.

I’ve been working with a rapidly growing, smaller client that sees the power of dashboards. I have to tip my hat to them as most $50 and $100 million dollar companies miss the true value in dashboards. They think ahead and results follow.

In today’s information overloaded society, leveraging dashboards to make sense of data for rapid decision-making can be priceless. What trends are emerging? Are you 75% through the quarter, and a key customer has only placed 30% of his typical orders? You better be on top of this to be proactive! Which items are profitable? I find that many clients have “A” customers with “C” margins; however, without easy-to-access dashboards with this type of information, the vast majority spend 80% of their effort to gain pennies of profit. Imagine what you could do if you leveraged strengths and knew which items were most profitable and which customers were most profitable? How would re-focusing a top performing employee on one of these customers or product lines affect your business performance?

Consider implementing simple dashboards for your business. Start by determining what is important. Identify which data is relevant. Present it in a dashboard. And, dig in.