Business Reporting: Chart and Graph

By: Adam Smith  

Business reporting is not always easy. Too often we can get swamped down in paper work and long, exhaustive reports that offer entirely too much information. Your business reporting does not have to end up like that. If you find yourself caught in this trap of creating long boring reports that nobody wants to read then perhaps it is time you find a new way to present your findings.

Have you ever heard of a business intelligence tool? Chances are you haven’t and that is okay. I will explain exactly what a business intelligence tool is. Quite honestly, it is pretty simple. A business intelligence tool is a tool that allows you to present information in an intelligent and meaningful manner.

One such business intelligence tool that allows you to do this is known as a dashboard. A dashboard is simply a means of displaying information. There are a variety of different kinds of business dashboards that you can use to display the information compiled in your reports. The dashboard facilitates this process by making it extremely easy to convert information into charts and graphs.

When you display information in charts and graphs it is easier to understand and interpret the data. In turn this makes the business reporting process that much easier and meaningful. You can offer the information you have researched to your boss in a much more efficient manner than a 50 page report. We all know your boss isn’t really interested in reading that long boring report so why should you waste your time preparing it? The answer is you should not waste all that time writing a report. Rather, you should spend your time analyzing the numbers and preparing a short presentation using charts and graphs like a pie graph to present your findings on business aspects like the latest changes in market share. Certainly, your boss would much rather take a look at a pie graph and visually see how your market share has grown while the competition’s piece of the pie has shrunk.

Through a dashboard, making better use of a chart and graph is entirely possible. You can use a pie graph to display other vital information. For instance you might rely on a pie graph to show how the percentage costs of various components of your product compares. Such a pie graph could assist you in easily identifying the component costs that are out of line with the all the others. With this knowledge in hand you can then make the appropriate recommendation to your boss. He will appreciate the visual representation of the component costs displayed by the pie graph, and will be more likely to respond to your recommendations.

In this manner the business reporting process can be simplified and improved, through the efficient use of a great business intelligence tool such as a management dashboard. The incorporation of the visual aspect into your brief report, like charts and graphs, will prove more valuable and useful to your boss. So next time you have to prepare a report, think outside the box and impress your boss by taking advantage of informative charts and pie graphs to support your recommendations.

Adam Smith is an information author for 10X Marketing. For more information on data visualization tools, please check out Mr. Miller’s data visualization article.




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