Using Visual Data Discovery to Analyze Data and Create Reports

Business managers are always being forced to meet the increasing demands placed on them by their companies. Whether it is taking work home with them or assuming more responsibility, managers are constantly under pressure.

Part of a manager’s role involves being alert to strategies and technologies that will make both their work and their teams’ work easier, more efficient and better performing. Visual data discovery is a new tool in the spectrum of business intelligence solutions that has been created to meet exactly those requirements.

What is Visual Data Discovery?

Visual data discovery is a Business Intelligence tool for analysing data. Here is a brief overview of the visual aspects of the three most common Business Intelligence tools:

• Managed Reporting: Information is most often presented in tables occasionally accompanied by charts. User interaction is almost non-existent and most changes will need to be made by the IT department.
• Dashboards: Presents information both graphically and numerically. It also allows the opportunity to drill down and interact with the data. It is still common for IT skills to be needed in the completion of dashboard reports and projects.
• Visual Data Discovery: A highly interactive and visually rich tool that allows business users to manipulate and explore information directly. Although IT help is still available, user based exploration and creation is much more common than in the other two tools.

How does Visual Data Discovery Help?

Data collected by the Aberdeen Group in 2012 found that those with visual data discovery were more likely to find the information they need, when they need it. These companies employing visual data discovery were also able to evenly spread their limited IT resources more effectively, decreasing pressure and increasing performance. New research mid way through 2013 has shown that visual data discovery can in fact change a businesses approach to analytics, making it more user driven. This will increase efficiency, alleviate frustrations and empower staff to perform at their full potential.

Finding The Right Information At The Right Time

Below is a visual representation of the Aberdeen Group’s research into 124 businesses and their use of data analytics. It shows that managers in organisations using visual data discovery are 28% more likely to find timely information than competing managers using only managed reporting and dashboards.

If we break this down by the three types of Business Intelligence mentioned earlier, we can further see the advantage of visual data discovery. Respondents were asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 100, how frequently they were able to find the information they needed in time to impact their decisions? (with 100% being always able to be found and 0% being never finding the information they needed when they wanted it). The results were segmented across the three types of BI technology already introduced:

• Managed Reports: 62%
• Managed Reports and Dashboards: 74%
• Managed Reports, Dashboards and Visual Data Discovery: 86%

We can see from the above results that the addition of Visual Data Discovery allowed managers to find the information they needed when they wanted it 86% of the time. This is in stark contrast to those only using Managed reports that found the information they need only little more than half the time.

Visual Data Discovery: Is It For Me?

Visual Data Discovery has a role to play in affording managers vision and insight that they
would otherwise be missing. Performance and efficiency are directly linked to this insight and timely access to information. Furthermore, having access to timely information that your competitors are unable to find offers you a competitive edge.

There seems considerable evidence to suggest that managers who use visual data discovery have the edge over those who don’t. If you are interested in applying visual data discovery to you data analytics or would just like to read more please download our free whitepaper below. Or tune in next week when we discuss how visual data discovery can help you create a user based analytics program and decrease your IT costs.