Your business operations need better data visualization. What tools can help you succeed?
Data visualization is the art and science of presenting complex information in a clear, engaging, and actionable way. It can help you improve your business operations by revealing patterns, trends, and insights that might otherwise be hidden or overlooked. Data visualization can also help you communicate your goals, progress, and challenges to your stakeholders, customers, and employees. But how do you create effective data visualizations that suit your needs and objectives? In this article, we will explore some of the tools and techniques that can help you succeed.
Data visualization can help you make better decisions, solve problems, and optimize processes in your business operations. By using charts, graphs, maps, dashboards, and other visual elements, you can transform raw data into meaningful stories that can inform, persuade, and inspire. Data visualization can also help you monitor your key performance indicators (KPIs), identify gaps and opportunities, and track your progress and impact. Data visualization can also help you foster a data-driven culture in your organization, where everyone can access, understand, and use data to improve their work.
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Moshira Samir
Ex. AGM, Head of Trade Finance at QNBAA, Ex. Head of Trade Finance at Arab African International Bank
Interactive dashboard by processing of raw data to provide business and clients' trends and behaviour to make forecasting and support the decisions making Also for monitoring of decreased business to analyse the root cause It's really useful for the cross selling as well
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Bhargavi Verma
100x Top Voice (In Top1% - 87 Domains) { Project, Business & IT Management } | { Business & IT Operations} | Business Analysis & Intelligence | Consulting | Content Writing | Co-Author | Google Certified-Data Analytics
Data visualization is crucial for informed decision-making, problem-solving, and process optimization in business operations. Through charts, graphs, maps, dashboards, and other visual elements, raw data can be translated into compelling stories that inform and inspire. Visualization helps in monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs), identifying gaps, tracking progress, and fostering a data-driven culture. It enables widespread access to data, ensuring that everyone in the organization can understand and leverage it to enhance their work.
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Nathan Arant
Turning business messes into business machines with software and process.
Leaders and decisions makers are inundated with an overwhelming amount of data that they simply do not have enough time to analyze and interpret. Data visualizations make the trends and insights hidden in large data sets easy to understand in a short amount of time. Analyst put in the hard work of analyzing data, but easily summarize 8 hours of analysis into a visual that only takes 5 seconds to understand. Hence, data visualization is essential in efficiently communicating the insights found in organizational data. Without simple tools like bar graphs and pie charts, it becomes difficult to intuitively understand what data may be indicating.
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Kanchana Patil
Corporate Lawyer: M&A, Private Equity, Corporate Restructuring ,Commercial Contracts, Legal Services, Compliances, IPR protection & registrations, Legal Opinions, Startup Legal services , Legal Tech Enthusiast.
We live in data driven society and data driven culture in the organization is imperative to sustain and survive businesses. Data visualization helps in data driven culture and simplify the process of convying as well understanding which overall boosts improvement in the business proceesses.Visualization makes data driven analytics are extremely useful in making informed business decisions.
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Raj Mohan
Senior Data Scientist / Business Operations
For businesses to succeed, it is necessary to understand what are the key metrics which define success. We need to understand where we stand with those metrics and what should be the end goals. Visualization plays a key role in achieving these. Visualization helps in consolidating data from multiple sources and provides single source of truth for end users. It handles huge amounts of data which cannot be handled by excel
When selecting a data visualization tool, there are several factors to consider, such as the type and source of your data, the purpose and audience of your visualization, and the cost and complexity of the tool. It is important to choose a tool that can handle the volume, variety, and velocity of your data, as well as create the right type of visualization for your message. Additionally, you should look for a tool that can customize the design, layout, and interactivity of your visualization to suit your audience's preferences. Furthermore, you should ensure that the tool fits your budget and skill level and offers the support and resources you need to use it effectively. Popular data visualization tools include Tableau, Power BI, Google Data Studio, and D3.js; however, each has its own strengths and weaknesses, so it is important to do research before making a decision.
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Kanchana Patil
Corporate Lawyer: M&A, Private Equity, Corporate Restructuring ,Commercial Contracts, Legal Services, Compliances, IPR protection & registrations, Legal Opinions, Startup Legal services , Legal Tech Enthusiast.
Use of data visualization tools depends upon the purpose for which tool is required. What is proposed to achived via use of visualization is essential to decide first. Depending upon need choose the data visualization tool.
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Bhargavi Verma
100x Top Voice (In Top1% - 87 Domains) { Project, Business & IT Management } | { Business & IT Operations} | Business Analysis & Intelligence | Consulting | Content Writing | Co-Author | Google Certified-Data Analytics
Choosing a data visualization tool requires considering factors like data type, source, purpose, audience, cost, and complexity. Ensure the tool can handle your data's volume, variety, and velocity while creating suitable visualizations. Look for customization options in design, layout, and interactivity to align with your audience's preferences. Consider factors like budget, skill level, and available support when choosing tools like Tableau, Power BI, Google Data Studio, or D3.js. Each tool has its strengths and weaknesses, so thorough research is crucial before making a decision.
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Nathan Arant
Turning business messes into business machines with software and process.
Ad-hoc visualization can easily be accomplished with Excel or Google Sheets, with Excel having noticeably superior customization capabilities compared to Google Sheets. Charts from these tools can easily be incorporated into their respective slideshow presenting software for professional presentation. For more advanced data visualizations using large data sets or for dashboards with real-time data, you'll need to use a true BI intelligence tool. An easy place to start for enterprise data is Google LookerStudio which is 100% free and directly integrates to tons of common tools. If you're a serious data analyst, you'll be looking to tools like Microsoft's Power BI or Salesforce's Tableau.
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Mohit Tyagi
CA | FP&A | Strategy | Finance Control | Commercial Control | Supply Chain Finance
There are many tools available in the market, but it largely depends upon the organisation’s requirement, size of the business, budget and Infrastructure for deploying any visualisation tools.
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Zunair Ameer
Regional Supply Chain Planner @ Sandvik | SCM, S&OP
We normally use power bi for almost all kinds of visualizations. It is working flawlessly and is easier to get on board with. Recently, I was on call with a co worker from a different continent and he was telling me about his excel file which makes it easier for him to track and manage inventories by making important bits easier to view at a glance. I requested him to ask me any question about his inventory and I showed him how Power bi can help him answer in way less time than updating a clunky sheet. He was hooked!
Creating data visualizations is not just about the tool and data you choose; it also requires applying the principles and best practices of data visualization design. Before beginning, define your goal and question, and consider who will be accessing the visualization. Select a visualization type that matches your data and message, and follow the basic rules and standards of data visualization. Additionally, use appropriate colors, fonts, labels, legends, scales, and axes. Avoid misleading or distorting your data with 3D effects, pie charts, or truncated axes. Lastly, cite your data sources and provide context and explanation for your data visualization.
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Bhargavi Verma
100x Top Voice (In Top1% - 87 Domains) { Project, Business & IT Management } | { Business & IT Operations} | Business Analysis & Intelligence | Consulting | Content Writing | Co-Author | Google Certified-Data Analytics
Effective data visualizations result from thoughtful design principles. - Start by clarifying your goal, question, and audience. - Choose a visualization type aligned with your data and message, adhering to basic rules. - Utilize suitable colors, fonts, labels, legends, scales, and axes, avoiding misleading elements like 3D effects, pie charts, or truncated axes. - Always cite data sources, and offer context and explanations to enhance understanding. This will ensure that your visualizations are not only visually appealing but also accurate and meaningful.
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Dr Solomon Gwashavanhu
CEO @ PSG Life Coach | Executive-style Coaching, Service Quality
Simplify and declutter: Keep the visualization simple and avoid clutter. Remove unnecessary elements, labels, or decorations that do not contribute to the understanding of the data. Use whitespace effectively to provide visual separation and enhance clarity.
Once you have created your data visualizations, you need to test and improve them to ensure they are accurate, clear, and effective. To do this, review your data visualizations for errors, inconsistencies, or gaps in your data, logic, or design. Additionally, evaluate your data visualizations against your goal and question to see if they answer them clearly and convincingly. Furthermore, obtain feedback from your intended audience and from experts who can offer a different perspective or insight on your data visualizations. You can use surveys, interviews, focus groups, or usability tests to collect and analyze feedback. Utilize the feedback and results from the review and testing to iterate and refine your data visualizations. Make changes to the data, design, or interactivity to enhance the clarity, relevance, and impact of your data visualizations. Experiment with different options and alternatives to find the best solution for your data visualization challenge.
The final step in your data visualization process is to share and distribute your data visualizations to your target audience and stakeholders. You can publish your data visualizations online, using a third-party platform or embedding them on websites, blogs, or social media. Additionally, you can export your data visualizations as images, PDFs, or other formats that can be used offline, such as in reports, presentations, or posters. Furthermore, it is important to keep your data visualizations up-to-date and relevant by regularly updating and maintaining them. Automating or scheduling a data refresh and visualization update is an effective way to do this. You can also monitor and measure the performance and impact of your data visualizations to improve them further. Data visualization is a powerful and essential skill for business operations; it can help you understand, communicate, and improve your data and processes. By using the right tools and techniques, you can create effective data visualizations that will help you reach success in your business goals and challenges.
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Micah Mata, MBA
LinkedIn Top Voice for Manufacturing Operations | Plant Management | Director | Operations Leadership
Sharing data visualizations can be done in a few ways. When I don't want someone to be able to access the data I will generally package up Excel Pivot Charts onto a single page, and publish a PDF that can be easily distributed. The benefit here is that your team only needs to see the output, and not all of the inputs, which simplifies things for them. If I don't mind someone having access to the data, I will invite people to a shared Excel document with the Pivot Charts. However, you must consider that someone could destroy your data if they are not careful. You may also use Tableau, or Microsoft Power BI to visualize electronic data easily. However, Tableau doesn't give you the same level of control as Excel does.
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Abhijeet Shrivastava
Senior Program Manager @ Amazon | Data Analytics & Management Consulting | ZS | NatWest | IIT Roorkee |
Sharing data visualisation should depends on the recipient audience and the frequency of the reports. For leadership power point can be suitable provided amount of data is less. If we have large dataset then it's good to use tools like Tableau & Amazon QuickSight which have ability to process large dataset, and these tools provide features to schedule reports for the recipient in a customized manner which will be auto sent based on the frequency selected.
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Lilia Rios Tsukuda
The messages are clear and consistent. The approach is applicable for such different companies and areas. Data visualization is a key element to engage people on data analytics.
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Abhijeet Shrivastava
Senior Program Manager @ Amazon | Data Analytics & Management Consulting | ZS | NatWest | IIT Roorkee |
Before getting started user should be aware of the data volume and the type of data is available. Most of the tools support structure data(RDBMS) for visualisation and very less tool have capability to support unstructured data(Excel or any text file) so if you are dealing both then you need to know a way where you can convert the unstructured data stream to structured data and inject in the visualisation.
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kunomate Amachree
Rivers
CARRIES HIGH VOLUME PRECISION DATA: Data visualization tools handle are like libraries and business intelligence outfits which help businesses to succeed.They are capable of handling large files,and simplifying such data. Some of the best data ,visualization tools include Google Charts, Chart Blocks,and Tableau, etc . These tools analyses high volume data,give clearer information of the data, processes the data,gives a clearer presentation and results. The operational outcome of the results are very specific, measurable, within a reasonable time.
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