The term dashboard brings to mind that panel under the windshield of a vehicle that contains indicator dials, various compartments and control instruments. Its beauty lies in its functionality. It brings together all of the relevant data and functions within easy accessibility to the driver. It allows us to monitor important, even lifesaving data while performing the vital day-to-day task of driving. In addition, it provides an ease of use and comfort so as to make the multitude of decisions necessary during the driving task almost automatic and, certainly, effortless.
For corporate decision-makers, the amount of data that must be monitored and analyzed on a given business day is anything but effortless. Hunting through spreadsheets, calling in elite information specialists, and experiencing costly delays in the synthesis process - managing information is becoming more complicated by the day. The time has come for a new vision of the dashboard that will meet the needs of today's business professionals.
The term dashboard has acquired a vibrant new meaning in the field of information management as leading organizations worldwide embrace the idea of empowerment through improved real-time information systems. In the current corporate vocabulary, a dashboard is a rich computer interface with charts, reports, visual indicators, and alert mechanisms that are consolidated into a dynamic and relevant information platform.
Information management is a field in our new information-saturated and fast-moving business culture. Corporate America is currently abuzz with talk about enterprise performance management, balanced scorecards, business activity monitoring, and regulatory compliance. The most exciting new development in these discussions is arguably how enterprise dashboards can serve as live consoles to manage such business initiatives. Currently, some good books and journal papers outline the concepts and value behind various new information management initiatives, but few resources are available that fully explore the issue of dashboard implementation. The only available insight into the world of dashboards at this time is confined to the manuals of the software, which facilitate dashboard implementation or specialize in specific solutions with a dashboard interface. As of the writing of Enterprise Dashboards, I have found no book on the subject of enterprise dashboards. This book will shed light on the neglected subject of dashboard implementation, one that I have had the opportunity to explore, practice, and preach over the past few years.
Who is Implementing Enterprise Dashboards?
We all want to learn from the successes and failures of others. Frequently, I am asked, "Can you provide us with references of those who have implemented dashboards to address similar problems?"
During the past 12 months alone, I have had the opportunity to discuss dashboard initiatives with more than 100 organizations, ranging from Fortune 100 corporations to organizations employing 100 people. Although I'm not at liberty to divulge any names, here's a profile of some of those organizations:
The list of organizations becoming involved in dashboarding continues to grow in scope and diversity. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to communicate with several organizations every week regarding their dashboarding initiatives. As diverse as the organizations are, so too are their applications of dashboards. I have seen companies implement applications including senior management dashboards, field sales reporting, dealer inventory management, supply chain management, employee scorecards, customer service level monitoring, customer information portals, marketing research, marketing and competitive intelligence, financial intelligence, regulatory compliance and many others.
The dashboarding trend is not exclusive to the United States and Canada. Lately, I have received inquiries from South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, China, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia. It is clear that enterprise dashboarding is becoming a global phenomenon.
Business Case for Enterprise Dashboards
Enterprise dashboards must provide a clear visibility to steer through the thick clouds of data overload and lacking insight. It is a well-established management principle that you cannot manage what you cannot measure. It is equally true, however, that you cannot manage well what you cannot monitor. That is where enterprise dashboards come in.
The early years of the 21st century have seen a convergence of several management thoughts that further that age-old quest for the right information at the right time. The dashboard is the new face of the emerging information management field. Dashboards have become the vehicle of execution for several key initiatives being implemented among organizations worldwide. Some of those initiatives include Balanced Scorecard, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), also referred to as Business or Corporate Performance Management (BPM), Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), Six Sigma and the regulatory compliances such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
In hindsight, dashboarding seems to reflect the natural course of progression in the quest for improved information and better decision making. Almost every organization has experienced an exponential growth in computing power and data volumes during the past years. This growth drives the organizational management to create more enlightened decision-making processes in an information-rich environment.
During the past decade, capabilities for data analysis and data mining have made great strides as computing power has followed Moore's law [i] of doubling every year. However, until recently, the task of conducting powerful data analysis has been relegated to well-trained analysts and experts within the respective fields. The rest of the organization depended on this elite group of information champions to decide what information was dispersed, when, and in what format. If someone needed information that was not precanned, it required an ad hoc information request. By the time the requesting person received the information, it was often too late, the information was obsolete, or perhaps the need for that specific information had evaporated because of rapidly changing daily priorities. The information seeker is forced to make a gut instinct decision to quickly address the narrow window of decision making. For a business user, the frustration resulting from such delays or timely inaccessibility to information can be well imagined!
