To maximise on business intelligence (BI) tools, organisations should take advantage of visualisations to have a clear picture of their business.
So said David Ives, director at IS Partners, during the ITWeb Business Intelligence Summit and Awards at Vodaworld yesterday.
In his presentation, themed 'Visual assimilation: When numbers just do it', Ives said data visualisation matters in BI. “Businesses should bring their data to life by incorporating visualisations,” he stressed.
He explained that visualisation is an advanced layer, which easily connects to datasets and effectively turns the data into information.
According to Ives, finding the right format for delivering information to users is a critical success factor in any BI initiative. “Visualisations tell the story behind the data in a way that is meaningful and easy to understand in terms of the business operations,” he said.
Ives added that there are a lot of opportunities in visualising information, saying visualisations have very minimal content and can be a quick way to present a business to a new person.
“Visualisation has the potential to identify real usability unlike the traditional 'think aloud' methodologies and screen capturing,” Ives said, adding that visualisations are easy to comprehend. “The faster you can identify a problem, the faster you can solve it too.”
He gave the example of geographical information systems, which can be used as a visualisation tool that can pay dividends.
Speaking at the same event, Etienne Louw, GIS specialist and MD at MapIT, revealed the advantages of putting a business on the map.
Breaking these down, Louw said mapping is crucial in enterprise BI as is predictive analysis of a business.
“By mapping a business, organisations get a market scope, as they will be able to analyse the business location using a map. Mapping is also important for spatial analysis as well as urban change detection. If your organisation doesn't have a map, you might be left out,” he noted.
According to Louw, the inclusion of geospatial analysis helps bring analytics to the next level. He said for organisations looking at product, geographical or customer data, the ability to identify trends by using maps can help businesses to quickly recognise trends.
“Businesses no longer have to assume what correlations exist based on geography because they can now see it. However, despite the ability to integrate geospatial information within dashboard use, it is only recently that companies have started to integrate this type of functionality within their overall dashboard use,” he said.
Ives also pointed out that as dashboards continue to improve their visualisation capabilities, the integration of various forms of visualisations - maps, charts, graphs, videos, etc - will become common among organisations looking to get a full picture of their supply chain, customer base and overall business operations.
“Solution providers will continue to improve their visualisation capabilities by taking advantage of interactive features with the goal of improving the end-user experience,” noted Ives.
Concluding his presentation, Ives also noted that businesses should make their visualisation as clear as possible to avoid baffling the user.
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