Organizations have access to an increasing amount of data and have plenty of opportunities to analyze it. Yet it is often difficult to find the right information. There are plenty of dashboards and reports available, but do they also help to make better decisions?

Many figures, little overview

The sales department has a dashboard with revenue figures, operations tracks the performance of systems and processes, and management receives periodic reports with the most important KPIs. All of this is useful information, but the overview is often lacking.

Departments use different data sources, maintain their own definitions, and work with reports that are not always updated at the same time. As a result, figures may be inconsistent individually but still differ from each other. This leads to discussions about which figures are correct, when what they actually mean should be the focus. Adding another dashboard will do little to help.

Good analytics starts with the right questions

When developing reports and dashboards, it is often based on the available data or the capabilities of an analysis tool. While you actually need to first determine what you want to know.

Do you want to better understand why certain processes are slowing down? Do you want to know which products contribute the most to the profit? Or do you want to be able to intervene earlier when the performance of systems declines? The answer determines which data you need and how you should analyze it. This will prevent you from measuring too much, without the results helping you further.

Reliable data as the foundation

Another problem is that data is often scattered across different applications and systems. One department works with information from the CRM, the other with data from the ERP system. Meanwhile, data is updated at different times and definitions are not always the same. Anyone who wants to combine that information has to first ensure that the data is compatible with each other.

Data Engineering is on the horizon. By connecting data sources, processing data, and controlling quality, it becomes possible to conduct reliable analyses. Technology alone is not sufficient. Agreements must also be made within the organization regarding definitions, responsibilities, and data quality. Otherwise, there remains the risk that different departments interpret the same figures differently.

From looking back to better leadership

Many dashboards are primarily focused on the past. They show how much was sold, how many incidents occurred or how processes performed. It becomes more interesting when you can find out why something happens. By combining data from different sources, connections become visible that you don’t see in separate reports.

Take, for example, a manufacturing company where the output of a production line regularly falls short. The production figures show when this happens, but do not explain what the cause is. By combining this data with information about malfunctions, maintenance, and staffing, the company can investigate which factors play a role.

With sufficient historical data, patterns can then be observed. Perhaps it becomes apparent that certain malfunctions occur more frequently after prolonged use, or that staffing levels affect production capacity. These insights can help plan maintenance better and detect problems earlier.

What does this mean for your organisation?

Greater insight does not automatically require new software. Sometimes it is enough to improve existing reports or better align data from different systems.

It helps to start with the questions for which you currently do not have a good answer. Perhaps compiling a monthly report still requires a lot of manual work. Or during a management meeting it turns out that departments use different figures for the same KPI. These are concrete points of reference for investigating where improvements are possible.

From data to usable insight with PuurData

PuurData helps organizations make their data more accessible and usable. With our expertise in Data Engineering, data infrastructures, and analytics technology, we help connect data sources, improve the quality of data, and enable reliable analyses.

We look at existing systems and the information that employees and management need. Sometimes this requires a better organization of the data infrastructure, and sometimes it requires combining data that is currently scattered. A good dashboard is ultimately not an end in itself; it is about being able to proceed with the available information.

Do you want to gain more insight from the data within your organization? See how PuurData you can help with Data Engineering and analytics.