More and more companies see the urgent need to lean into a data-driven approach to business these days. As ‘big data’ and ‘data-driven’ become more popular key phrases across business negotiations, companies are taking note of how adhering to data can be advantageous. On the other hand, we can see how reading data is getting harder and harder over time. With the amount of information we see as necessary, we collect and derive a ton. But we still can’t make good use of them. We have trouble finding insight from this data, even though it could make a large impact on our business.

Fortunately, data visualization can help us make clear business decisions. Thanks to a variety of visualization technology and systems, we can read data more clearly and glean valuable insights. Let’s take a closer look at data visualizations in business and how your company could benefit from incorporating them as soon as possible.

Data-Driven Decisions Serve Your Business

Recently, you’ve probably seen “data-driven business” all over the place. It’s getting to be a pretty popular phrase. It typically refers to a particular process, where businesses collect data, measure goals, analyze patterns, and derive insights that can help make important decisions. For example, it might be used to develop a new strategy for a particular service offered by that business. In other words, all decisions are typically based on data, but data-driven usually refers to a very hardline focus on employing that data for the greatest effect.

The importance of a data-driven approach lies in the consistency and continual growth it affords a company. It allows the creation of new opportunities, generates more revenue, optimizes current activities, and may help predict future trends. Thanks to that process, your business can be more flexible, which is a must in an ever changing market. Moreover, companies that incorporate a data-driven approach tend to treat information as an important asset and thrive more efficiently.

How Can Data Visualization Help Making Decisions?

Pictures, graphs, and visualizations make everything easier to understand and analyze. That’s why data visualization allows analysts to conduct more insights from well-visualized data. A wide variety of information in various forms can complement each other in graphic form. That is how we can easily recognize the best formulas, point out the areas with the most potential, and indicate the weakest spots. When data visualization is well made, your business can benefit a lot. You’re able to more clearly see what works and what doesn’t.

In order to make the most of data visualization, there are a few important aspects that should be included:

• The data must be presented with background information that puts the graphs into context that everyone is capable of understanding.
• Visualizations should showcase key data in a way that indicates a clear course of action.

When data visualization covers the above factors, analysts can put those insights into action with confidence. In combination with the following steps, businesses will be able to thrive.

Extra Benefits of Data Visualization

Above all, data visualization can improve many aspects of work in your organization.

1. Improved Response Times

Data visualization offers users data in a format that allows them to quickly identify issues and improve response time and reaction methods for those issues. Essentially, you waste less time looking for the issue and more time resolving it.

2. Work Simplicity

Thanks to visualizations users get the big picture, and they’re able to see all the necessary details at the same time. When users interact with only the relevant data, their work process can be simplified a great deal.

3. Easy Pattern Recognition

Try to find a pattern while checking hundreds of lines in a spreadsheet or across a few different data sets. It’s almost impossible! When you use visualizations, you can better absorb and recognize new interactions. You’ll be able to pick up and utilize patterns, trends, and even make predictions. Whether you’re using charts, heat maps, or another source, it can make it significantly easier for everyone to read and work with.

4. Improved Collaboration

Additionally, when all of the teams at your company can see the same data visualizations, it’s much easier to draw similar conclusions and be on the same page about those same trends and progressions. By providing an easier to understand and more accessible collection of data, teams can collaborate more efficiently because they’re working with the same knowledge base. It can help individual teams or cross department collaborations decide on next steps or discover solutions faster than before.

5. Combining Data From Various Sources

Last, but definitely not least, data visualizations make it easier to see data from different sources at the same time. It’s hard to see if a Facebook campaign is successful from only looking at the Facebook analytics, so if you want to compare them with data from your CRM and Google Analytics, it’s best to see them on a well-done visualization. 

Data Visualization Tools

So it’s easy to see why you’d want to incorporate data visualizations into your business, but you might be wondering how to actually do it. There are great data visualization tools that every business has access to. Let’s check out some of the best ones we’ve found so far.

Tableau Software

Tableau is an interactive data visualization software that allows you to simplify raw data into an understandable format. You can create data visualization in the form of dashboards and worksheets. It is commonly used in the Business Intelligence Industry. Although the tool is not free of charge, it is worth the investment. Tableau encourages you to join its community and learn even more about data visualization. You can share your visualizations online or on the server – you can choose if it is public or not. If you are not convinced, take a look at our data visualizations created with Tableau.

Microsoft Power Bi

Power BI is a business analytics service provided by Microsoft. It allows you to create interactive visualizations. Moreover, it provides business intelligence capabilities with an interface simple enough for end-users to create their own reports and dashboards. Power Bi is not a free tool but it allows you to create a lot for a reasonable price.

Google Data Studio

This free tool is provided by Google. Data Studio gives you everything you need to turn your analytics data into informational, understandable reports through data visualization. The reports are easy to read and share. They are customizable to each of your clients if you work with more than one company. You can choose how you want to showcase the data – bar graphs, charts, line graphs, etc. Moreover, you are able to change fonts and colors and brand the reports with the logo. It is one of the most common tools analysts work with nowadays. If you want to know more about Data Studio, check out my blog posts on this tool.

Qlik

Qlik is a business intelligence and visual analytics platform. It is a simple and interactive data visualization tool that enables users to import and aggregate data from different data sources. They can further use the data visualization tools of the software to shape raw data into meaningful information. Moreover, you can try it for free. 

D3.js

Last but not least, if you want to have full control of your data visualization or your application, d3.js is a perfect choice. It is the best data visualization library. D3.js runs on JavaScript and uses HTML, CSS, and SVG. D3.js is an open-source and applies a data-driven transformation to a webpage and allows you to create quickly beautiful visualizations. It also provides great features for interactions and animations.

Incorporate Smart Analytical Thinking

As you can see, data visualizations can enhance analytical thinking, help derive insights, and offer room for quick, data-driven decision making. It’s just a smart way to improve many aspects of your business so it can grow. Data visualization is essential these days, if you’re not sure about doing it yourself, seek for the analytical partner that can introduce you to smart data visualization.