Is it worth investing in data visualization tools for SMEs?
Every penny counts to small business owners! You want to utilize your resources optimally and zero down on the wastage of any resources. In such a scenario, the question of whether data visualization for small business is worth or not is quite natural.
Data is everywhere
According to the most recent report by Statista, globally, the total amount of data generated, captured, copied, and used up is predicted to increase rapidly. It has reached 59 zettabytes in 20 20, taking the Big Data market to $103 billion by 2023. Not just large organizations but also SMEs have the right to this gold mine of data. But, it can only be utilized optimally when it’s properly structured.
Data visualization for SME or large organizations
Data visualization helps in understanding the health of an organization without slogging through the information.
For instance, with approximately 64% of small businesses having an online presence, it’s imperative to have a website. Regardless of your business’s size. If you don’t check your website’s health – from where the traffic’s coming, which content is doing better, etc., how will you maintain the website? And if your website is not reachable, you will lose out on 70% – 80% of prospects. Can you afford that?
For anyone with a website, Google Analytics is a savior – but what does it do? It merely presents the data to a common man in the most decipherable format.
Gartner explains that stats persuade only a few, whereas engaging visualization reaches the audience and warrants a thoughtful decision. And an impactful visualization shows some movement. “Something needs to happen. In short, the visualization needs to tell a story,” explains Gartner.
So, for sustainability, data visualization for small businesses is as necessary as for a medium or a large organization. Let us now look at how SMEs can reap better ROI by investing in data visualization tools.
6 Benefits of data visualization tools for small & medium businesses
1. Saves time
Data visualization tools gather information from different sources, like vendor applications, internal CRMs, and your local drive. Then assimilates it into one place.
You need not go through various reports presented by your different departments and invest time drawing a correlation between the scattered factors.
2. Aids forecast the future
Danish physicist Niel Bohr’s famous statement on the future – “Predictions are hard, especially about the future” can’t be denied. However, the new BI tools have made it easier for businesses. To analyze the market trend and to make more measured decisions.
So, while the BI tools do not play astrologers’ role, they surely help business owners take more calculated risks. Backed by numbers and forecastings like trend analysis and predictive analysis.
Related Read – How is the future of data visualization
3. Grants better insights into data
With such massive data being churned out every minute, without proper visualization, it will be nothing, but numbers and formulas meant for geeks. The right visualization tool helps you collate data, clean it, organize it, and present it through visuals.
Thus, it becomes easier for you to get a clear insight into the data. And the best part is that most of these reports are updated on real-time data.
4. Enhances decision-making
Data should be readily available at your fingertips, accessible from anywhere, and easy to explain to your stakeholders. Visualization gives sentences to your data vocabulary that you can utilize to convince your stakeholders.
Furthermore, decisions backed by numbers and facts are more substantial and reliable than decisions based on intuition.
5. Encourages engagement
A study by psychologist Jerome Bruner concludes that we remember 80% of what we see compared to only 20% of what we read. And a meager 10% of what we hear. No doubt why the static lengthy reports and spreadsheets are boring!
To grab the audience’s attention and retain it, it’s essential to develop engaging, interactive, and insightful visuals.
6. Identifies customers’ expectations
We all know – the customer is the king, but how will you satisfy them without accurate information on market dynamics?
Robust BI tools resolve this problem by helping you study the behavioral & buying patterns of consumers. Once you can identify your customers’ wants, you can channelize your marketing strategies and base your services accordingly.
Before moving ahead, why not make yourself more familiar with data visualization as a whole? Why, when, how, and where to use it?
Interested to know? Click below –
What is data visualization: The practical guide for SME business owners
Best practices in data visualization for small business
Now that you know why you should start investing in data visualization let us help you with some crucial tips to develop interactive and intuitive dashboards.
- The dashboards should be audience-specific
- Keep the graphs simple and easy to understand
- Do not clutter a report with unnecessary visuals and colors
- Use BI tools that can be accessed from any device
- And make sure, to tell a story using your data visualizations
To understand the best practices that can help data visualization for small businesses, check out this great blog piece on best practices to follow for data visualization.
Power BI simplifies data visualization for small businesses.
If you haven’t used any DataViz tool for your organization earlier, Power BI is one of the best data visualization tools to start with. It can connect to numerous data sources and build reports accessible from anywhere, any device, without any data security issue.
You can start with the free version of Power BI, and as your business grows, you can upgrade yourself to the premium one. Furthermore, Power BI’s steep learning curve makes it an apt data visualization tool for small businesses.
Microsoft has been the unbeaten leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for analytics and business for over a decade because of its easy-to-use product, loaded with advanced features.
Check out their pricing details. And to start things off on the right note, it is better to partner with a Power BI consultant.
Here’s another write up to explain why partnering with a data visualization consultant can help your business evolve.
To Conclude
While 97.2% of organizations have already started investing in big data and AI, there’s a huge chunk (95%) that is still groping to manage the unstructured data.
If you want to utilize big data to take a giant leap and stay ahead of your competitors, invest in data visualization. Even if you are a small or medium-sized business, let data guide you in your decisions!
Want to start your analytics journey on the right step? We are a data visualization consultant that specialize in enhancing SME businesses.
With more than 15,000 hours of consulting experience, we are a Microsoft silver partner too!
For any type of analytics consulting, BI implementations, or to get started with Microsoft Power BI, drop us an inquiry.
