6 tips for data visualisation

Data is the lifeblood that fuels business growth. But even if you’re using every last scrap of it, it can be difficult to make informed decisions with sub-par visualisation making it difficult to understand the full picture. Here’s how to make the most of data visualisation to make data-driven decisions for your business.

The importance of data visualisation

Before words there were pictures. And these pictures told a thousand words. As humans, our brains are hardwired to interpret images – in fact, our brains process images 60,000 times faster than words. Data visualisations that tell a visual story are easy to understand, with evidence suggesting that they are more likely to be remembered too.

Action occurs much quicker

Data visualisation provides an element of simplification and transparency which enables decision makers to comprehend the data and take meaningful actions quickly. By leveraging big data visualisation tools like Microsoft Power BI, business leaders can use real-time information to make effective decisions. The capability to make decisions quickly and in real-time enables new opportunities to be identified fast. Can your competitors make these decisions at speed?

Find the outliers

Data visualisation enables you to quickly see the outliers in your datasets. As these tend to drag down data averages in the wrong direction, it is essential to both find and eliminate them from your analysis. If you don’t, your results will be inaccurate. The use of graphics quickly and simply illustrates any outliers, enabling you to understand the root cause of them and to discount them where necessary.

Keep your teams data-driven

Ensuring your sales and marketing teams are data-driven is vital to the business. In reality, however, what does this mean? Your teams might have an abundance of customer data, campaign data and market research at their fingertips, but are they really gleaming the relevant insights from it? And how are they sharing this with each other?

Data visualisation provides users with a swift, effective and easily accessible way to identify important patterns. Sales and marketing teams can respond in real-time and tweak campaign activity in line with key insight. This is how agile teams can work together effectively, not to mention a time-saver for busy teams.

Forget the need to employ a data scientist

Data visualisation tools should promise simplification and ease of use. Importantly, by putting the power of data at the fingertips of anyone within your organisation, non-data scientists can prepare data, build machine learning models, and find insights.

Complement your existing reporting

Reports and dashboards will always have their place, but often data visualisation offers the strongest approach to provide valuable insight. This is because they are capable of relaying large quantities of information in small spaces. Where once it would have taken someone days, potentially even weeks to delve into large data sets, data visualisation allows for fast and efficient interpretation.

It’s important that your data visualisation tool isn’t standalone. It must be integrated with your existing ways of working and enhance your current workflows. For example, if you can quickly connect Excel queries, data models and reports, you can gather, analyse, publish and share Excel business data at speed in new and innovative ways.

If you’re keen to learn more about enhancing your business analytics, data visualisation and reporting, chat to our experts and get in touch below.

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