Contact us anytime to know more — Abhishek P., Founder & CFO CISIN
Making good decisions is vital in any company or sector, whether small or large. No matter who makes decisions in an organization - low or high-level decision-makers alike; visual aids play a pivotal role in effectively communicating ideas to all levels.
The information generated by companies grows over time.
Understanding the results and facts presented can be easy or challenging.
Business leaders face daily decisions with significant ramifications that shape their organization's direction, many with huge consequences.
Today's digital and big data revolutions have given these business leaders more tools for making better, data-driven decisions.
Businesses can leverage large quantities of data with big data analytics. Every day we produce 2.5 quintillion bits of information; new technology enables us to collect this massive volume.
But without insights and action, this data becomes useless.
Data visualization is the visual display of data and information. Data visualization enables us to take large volumes of raw data and transform them into consumable insights, providing people with powerful tools for data-driven decision-making.
Although your organization might not possess 2.5 quintillion bits of information, data visualization can greatly assist decision-making and boost business outcomes.
What are the Decision-Making Processes?
An average person makes, on average, 35,000 decisions daily, long before big data was available to us all. Before this momentous event occurred, people had long been refining and adapting decision-making techniques; scientists have also studied these methodologies over decades to understand what constitutes good decisions while helping individuals avoid bad ones.
How should we reach a decision exactly?
Researchers have concluded that our decisions are made through mental processes influenced by emotions, memories, biases and reason.
Although we try to reach rational and logical decisions when possible, other factors could sway us away from making rational and logical choices.
What is Data Visualization?
On average, people make approximately 35,000 decisions daily, according to recent estimates from academic experts and sociologists.
Before big data's advent, people had developed, refined and implemented effective decision-making techniques - many in collaboration with scientists - to produce high-quality decisions while minimizing risks and bad ones.
How should we make decisions exactly?
Researchers have shown that our decisions are determined by mental processes influenced by emotions, memories, biases and reason.
Although we strive to reach rational decisions with logic in mind, various other influences could impact our ability to make intelligent choices.
Data Visualization Importance
Data visualization assists executives, decision-makers, and stakeholders in comprehending large volumes of information quickly.
When presented logically, it allows easier detection of trends or patterns within these sets.
Data visualization assists decision-makers by gathering large datasets quickly, using technology to reduce risks, and finding lucrative opportunities more rapidly than any alternative means would.
Without data visualization, decision-makers would have to manually collect and analyze information manually, which requires much more work, takes more effort and time, and can lead to many differing interpretations across an organization, leading to longer decision times with poorer judgment.
What is the Business Value of Data Visualization?
Data visualization tools enable users to quickly and efficiently assess vast information.
Visual data visualization assists workers in making better decisions by providing easily understood information in an easily understandable format.
Visualization makes data easier for people to interpret quickly, providing faster insight. Visuals also make sharing these findings easy while showing relationships among independent variables - helping track trends, identify events more often or understand operations related to performance more fully.
The following are some of the key benefits that data visualization provides:
- Big data: Unlocking its value by giving people the ability to consume vast quantities of data in a single glance
- Access to information in real-time and at any given moment can help speed up decision-making.
- Quickly identifying errors in data.
Business Analytics Benefits
Proper data visualization allows those making decisions in large companies to easily recognize outliers and patterns within data sets, showing conditions, correlations and their effects within an organization.
Visuals provide viewers with essential insight.
An effective presentation may use more complicated formats depending on a group of analysts' expertise in reading data visualization.
Examples may include tree maps, bubble charts, geographic maps or scatter graphs - these formats may also depend on whether information can best be presented via simpler charts or whether certain industries will respond best when their information is displayed this way.
Analysts who only encounter one data visualization are at a disadvantage compared to analysts who review multiple figures and charts because those from the second group may interpret similar images differently, leading to disagreement between decision-makers or stopping progress on certain subjects altogether.
What Types of Data Visualization Are There?
Data design agency Datalabs Agency categorizes data visualization into two categories.
- Explore: Exploring visualizations will help you understand the information being presented.
- Explanation: Visualizations of explanation tell an audience a story using data.
Understanding which end a visualization is aiming to accomplish is crucial. Data Visualization Catalog is a collection of information visualizations developed by freelance designer Severino Ribecca.
The following are some of the more common types of visualizations:
Geospatial Visualizations: This is a typical geospatial visualization. Cartograms, for example, use map distortions to communicate information like population or travel times.
The choropleth uses shades and patterns to show a statistic, like a state's population density.
Temporal: This is a one-dimensional, linear visualization with a beginning and ending time. A time series is a way to present data such as website traffic by month or day.
Gantt charts are a great example of illustrating project schedules.
Multidimensional: These common visualizations display data in two or more dimensions. Some examples include scatter plots, pie charts and histograms.
Hierarchical: This visualization shows how groups are related to each other. A tree diagram is an example of hierarchical visualization showing the relationship between larger and smaller groups.
Network: Network visualizations illustrate how different data sets relate to each other in a system.
A node-link graph (also known as a "network graph") is an example of a visualization that uses links and nodes to illustrate how different things are connected.
Data Visualization Tools
The data visualization software includes many tools and scripts.
These tools allow designers to visualize large datasets. The following are some of the most common:
Domo: The cloud-based software Domo specializes in data visualization and business intelligence.
The dashboards are geared towards business users, and the ease of use makes it an excellent choice for smaller businesses looking to build custom applications.
Dundas BI: Dundas is a platform that allows you to visualize data, create and share dashboards, reports and analytics, and embed analytics.
Information Gram: an easy-to-use tool that allows you to visualize marketing reports, social media updates, dashboards and infographics.
The ease of use makes it an excellent option for those who are not designers.
Klipfolio: Klipfolio allows users to combine and access data from over 100 services without writing code.
The dashboard can be customized using a data modeler and pre-built instant metrics.
Looker: Looker is now part of Google Cloud and has an extensive plug-in market with different visualizations and pre-made blocks.
The interface is drag-and-drop.
Microsoft Power BI: Microsoft PowerBI is an integrated business intelligence tool with Microsoft Office.
The dashboards and reporting are easy to create. Excel is very similar so Excel knowledge will transfer easily. The mobile version is also available.
Qlik: Qlik Qlik Sense is a data exploration engine that uses AI to make recommendations and offers an "associative data engine" for data analysis.
The company is working on expanding its multi cloud and open architecture capabilities.
SISENSE: sense is a platform for end-to-end analysis, best known as embedded analytics. It is used by many customers in OEM format.
Tableau: Tableau, one of the leading data visualization platforms, is an application that allows you to access, prepare, analyze and present data.
Many options, such as a desktop application, server and hosted versions online, or a public, free version, are available. Tableau is a difficult program, but it's great for making interactive charts.
How Can Data Visualization Help Improve Decision Making?
Before our minds can truly understand statistics in context, they need to read, comprehend, and interpret them. Data visualizations reduce brain processing by tapping into our intuitive ability.
When things appear larger or smaller than expected, are closer or farther apart, or are moving up or down, data visualization helps us better comprehend them.
Visualization helps convey information quickly, helping our brains create connections more rapidly.
As global data production approaches 40 trillion gigabytes by 2020, its management becomes essential to companies.
Here are four benefits associated with it that businesses may seek:
1. Rapid Response Speeds
Data visualization can be implemented effectively into reports or presentations to enhance information, support analysts in digesting it quickly, distinguish positives from negatives, reach conclusions quickly with greater efficiency, and take swiffer actions.
Data visualization saves time and helps people absorb it quicker than traditional charts.
Researchers from Penn's School of Medicine discovered in 2006 that the retina transmits data at approximately 10,000,000 bits per second - roughly equivalent to Ethernet network speeds.
On the other hand, business reports have not provided access to information with similar ease over the years due to disorganized charts and tables not offering nuanced presentation - ultimately meaning time could be better used to apply knowledge than reading business reports.
By contrast, data visualization enables business analysts to instantly comprehend information's various dimensions and relationships.
Visual tools like heat maps and fever charts have revolutionized how professional decision-makers interpret data. Companies using visual reports as part of their analysis strategy will likely gain greater knowledge quickly while having an edge against the competition.
Studies on data visualization's efficacy have provided ample evidence of its capacity to increase business efficiency.
Aberdeen Group conducted a 2013 research project which revealed people with managerial roles were 28% more likely than those using older reporting methods to collect information faster; even more impressive for companies using business intelligence: 48 per cent gather and transform that information directly into action without IT involvement required!
2. Improved, Simplified Focus On What Matters Most
Analysts can quickly access all the data and concentrate on what matters. By consolidating all information and emphasizing only key facts, data becomes easier for analysts to process quickly.
Furthermore, the relationship between market and operating conditions will only become more critical as businesses become more competitive.
Analysts for a computer supply chain may review a report outlining customs nationwide, particularly laws regarding customers living below Mason-Dixon Line.
Such a report might contain bar charts showing unsatisfactory numbers of net promoters from that region compared with customers elsewhere; such trends suggest less customer satisfaction but don't explain why.
An accurate data report could demonstrate that South American customer relations have declined due to call centers failing to successfully resolve initial customer contacts, leading them to provide negative feedback from customers and ultimately leading them to lower performance levels overall.
Such crucial insight would enable executives to take immediate steps for improvement in this region.
3. Easy Viewing of Trends and Patterns
Traditional data formats often make it impossible to quickly recognize patterns from large amounts of information, with hours wasted sorting, reading and highlighting documents to locate pertinent details.
Data visualization tools help bring this important data forward without spending valuable time searching through documents - you don't waste time looking for statistics, figures or essential details! Visuals also make trends and patterns much simpler to interpret by showing them visually using maps, charts and trees - saving time and energy!
An expanding restaurant chain may use data reports with visualizations showing takeout orders have generated the greatest profit over the last year in urban areas versus diners as an indication to focus on catering expansion in their urban expansion and leave large sit-down restaurants to suburban expansion.
With such information in hand, executives could make decisions regarding expansion accordingly.
4. The Ability to Modify and Interrelate with Data
Data visualization offers great benefits in presenting actionable information to all parties involved, making the information easy for everyone to comprehend and act upon.
Modern tools for visualization allow analysts to interact with their data - unlike static charts and graphs that only serve to be looked at.
Fashion marketers might send apparel companies an Excel sheet informing them that denim sales are down in major urban areas yet providing no further insights or details.
Such reports might prompt further discussions among manufacturers about whether climate change, economic factors or consumer preferences for lengths and cuts are responsible. Furthermore, the information presented may have already become outdated within just months and not reflect what sales figures mean.
Predictive analytics or real-time visualization could give manufacturers accurate figures for any market. Such reports would also show why certain cities have experienced decreased sales - possibly as the new denim wears out faster or due to street fashion trends for distressed and frayed denim jeans.
Jean manufacturers would then need to determine how best to combat their slumping sales of flared low-waisted jeans in New York or Los Angeles declining because people already own several pairs and are tired of them; jeans manufacturers could ship high-waisted drainage jeans instead to clothing outlets there or assess fashion-forward crowds like Paris or Milan to see if any new style or shape has taken hold in Europe.
5. The Ability to Develop a New Language for Business
Data visualization uses images to convey stories instead of providing facts directly.
Heat maps could offer more insight into the revenue growth of an American company than static bar graphs could. A bar chart, for instance, would not show differences across cities or states but only whether overall numbers are increasing or decreasing.
Heat maps provide invaluable insight into a report detailing earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation. A company selling furniture across the U.S.
might receive such a report and discover its profits are relatively modest in most regions; however, in zip codes with high income, their profits skyrocket, moving by truckload in these wealthier zip codes as part of an attempt to compensate for low sales in less populated or poorer areas.
Data visualization offers a more accurate representation. A conventional report might only demonstrate poor market sales, suggesting an unstable economy.
Furniture firms could take various actions based on this information to boost sales or maximize profits - perhaps offering discounted items, bundling sales together for cost savings in less-prosperous markets, etc.
6. Improvements in Collaboration Among Work Teams
Data visualization improves collaboration by presenting all key information uniformly while emphasizing each team member's special talents.
When everyone stays updated about a project, making decisions and implementing them faster becomes simpler - no more waiting around while some analysts get information upfront. In contrast, others must wade through piles of text before reaching any meaningful decisions! All necessary details can now be accessible instantly to all parties involved.
Data visualization makes information gathering faster by helping to spot trends more readily, collaborate on shared goals with like-minded colleagues, and take decisive action quickly compared to presentations without visual aids.
Wrapping Up
By 2024, global data collection will reach 149 zettabytes - most of it unutilized without proper analysis resulting in massive financial losses to millions of businesses around the globe.
Data visualization helps organizations make smarter decisions faster by quickly summarizing what information is at hand into meaningful conclusions quickly and effortlessly.
Before diving into analysis, providing the data with its proper context is vital. To ease analyst work and make their task simpler, information must be displayed clearly and attractively for optimal understanding and retention.
SG Analytics offers customized Data Visualization services tailored to our client's requirements. We assist organizations in uncovering insights from their data and then transform these discoveries into an easy-to-use dashboard that makes essential data readily accessible to everyone in their organization.
