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 higher performing. Business intelligence tools that enable data discovery in a visual way have 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. Visual data discovery can in fact change a businesses approach to business analytics, making it more user driven and self-service. This increases efficiency, alleviate frustrations and empower staff to perform at their full potential.

Finding the right information at the right time

The Aberdeen Group’s 2012 research surveyed 124 businesses and their use of data analytics. It showed that managers in organizations using visual data discovery are 28% more likely to find timely information than competing managers using only managed reporting and dashboards.

The Aberdeen group revisited visual data discovery in a 2013 survey of 29 organizations using visual data discovery, and uncovered the following benefits of visual data discovery:

• 86% of visual data discovery users were able to get access to timely information, as compared to 67% of users without visual data discovery
• Organizations with visual data discovery were able to provide analytics to 40% of their employees, whereas organizations without visual data discovery were only able to do so for 27% of their employees
• 48% of BI users are able to find information needed without IT’s help most or all the time in organizations with visual data discovery. At organizations without the tool, only 23% of employees were able to cope with minimal or no IT involvement.

Visual data discovery has clearly enabled efficiency. After all, it is silly to wait for IT to get anything done – the average BI project backlog of IT departments is 143 days.

Visual Data Discovery: A Bigger, Clearer Picture

A business built on solid facts can be far sounder than one built on guesses and baseless predictions. When a manger needs to make a decision, they draw on all the information they can and synthesize it into a comprehensible set of data that gives them insight which they can base decisions on.

Visual data discovery alleviates the stress of a desperate search for enough information to work with; it allows the user to find information and manipulate it with ease, offering complete control. By having accurate information, the rest of the business can function at maximum efficiency. Visual data discovery allows managers to see the whole picture and not have to constantly account for the disjunction between the reality of the market and internal assumptions about it. From this increased clarity, managers can create more accurate and timely strategies for their business.

Empowering the User

The ease of use of visual data discovery is also key in its ability to make managers and their teams more self-sufficient.

By allowing users to have control over their data, businesses become more confident in their managers. Aberdeen claims that businesses using visual data discovery are 50% more likely to let managers initiate and drive new analytics projects than those that don’t. This is indicative of the changing face of business. As static reports without interaction are taken over by dynamic reports where the user can drill down on any information they want, the ease of use of visual data discovery is also key in its ability to make managers and their teams more self-sufficient.

Collaborative Decisions

It is important for managers to be able to disseminate necessary information to their team in a quick and comprehensive fashion. In a time scarce situation when a manager needs feedback from their team before final decisions are made, getting reports to them quickly and in an easily understandable format is imperative. Managers at companies that use visual data discovery are over three times more likely than others to be able to annotate and share reports and charts.

This threefold increase in information sharing gives any manager a competitive edge, empowering them to take ownership of important decision processes. By turning the process into collaborative decision-making, visual data discovery helps business intelligence software in effectively sharing information to concerned parties and getting the best collective result.

More Flexible Project Management

Half of those surveyed by the Aberdeen Group, report using more flexible project management approaches than traditional methods. 53% of companies employing Business Intelligence use an incremental approach to their projects to help ensure the project goals and requirements are identified and then adequately met.

This flexible approach to project management utilizes the constant stream of valuable information that is easily found and distributed by users of business intelligence software and in particular visual data discovery. Flexible management allows your team more freedom to perform to their strengths and you more chances to leverage all your available resources.

Visual data discovery, ultimately, not only makes better managers, but also better businesses.