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What is the importance of data visualisation for your business?

Posted by Perceptive Insights Team - 26 June, 2017

Are you pondering the importance of data visualisation for your market research efforts? Then ponder no more. This is what the right data visualisation tools can do for your company:


What is the importance of data visualisation for your business?

Accessibility

By presenting data visually, you are cutting out a significant portion of the ‘analysis middleman’. Rather than having to pore through dozens of pages of numbers, tables, formulae and jargon-laden notes, data visualisation lets people—even those without specialist training—easily understand the data and, perhaps more importantly, make the connections needed without long-winded explanations.

You can understand how valuable this would be to a busy executive. Rather than needing to set aside an hour for a presentation with support staff, executives can far more easily and far more quickly access the data that is most relevant to their needs. They gain efficiency, autonomy and independence.

 

Read more: Get data smart: Your data science 101 guide

 

Pattern recognition

Approximately 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day around the world, and 90 per cent of the world’s data has been made over only the last few years. Imagine trying to parse the inordinate amount of data that your business alone is generating; transactions, net promoter scores, cash flow projections, profit margins, customer rants and raves, just to name a few. All of these numbers can be important, but without the right visualisation methods, it can make it nearly impossible to make the connections you need between them.

Without data visualisation, it can be nearly impossible to make the connections you need.

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Think of something as simple as a sales pie chart, split by the department responsible. This basic method of data visualisation tells you not only the number of sales you’ve made in total, but also how many in each department, as well as the proportion of each. In one simple chart, you’ve uncovered some of your most important data, compared it, and probably gathered some actionable insights from it too. You are far more able to make the connections you need; perhaps Department A needs a funding or staffing boost, or Department B is outperforming everywhere else by a significant amount. Without data visualisation, these connections would not have been nearly as obvious.

 

Emerging trends

Data visualisation can also give you a head start on emerging trends, giving you the edge over your competition or simply adapting your business strategy to better suit your demographics. With non-visualised data, emerging trends can be hidden in the ream of numbers, but by processing this down into a single visual representation, the oncoming changes are far more evident.

For example, you could be presented with a brand tracker that reveals positive perspectives of your brand and its products are most common amongst younger people compared to similar tracker data from last year. Clearly, a new generation of people have taken to your product with gusto—perhaps it is time to adjust your strategy to promote that product more strongly with your new cohort?

 

Related content: Businesses that embrace data science are set to come out ahead

 

Customisable data parameters

If you are using interactive visualisation on top of regular data visualisation, you are opening yourself up to all the best parts of data visualisation, and then more. By making the data easily manipulated and user-friendly, you are allowing for deeper dives, customised comparisons and the ability to use real-time data, upgrading your strategic analysis to the next level.

By making the data easily manipulated and user-friendly, you are allowing for deeper dives, customised comparisons and the ability to use real-time data.

Your executives and analysts are able to recognise potential cause and effect relationships that otherwise might have been overlooked; rather than having to go back to the drawing board and creating a whole suite of new data, they can instead simply select new parameters and test their theories in real time. It’s more efficient, allowing for faster responses and the discovery of actionable insights that could have been missed without data visualisation.

 

Story-telling

However, perhaps the most powerful part of data visualisation is the fact that it is inherently a story-telling medium. It’s engaging, it’s accessible and more convincing than a series of tables and numbers, giving you a better option when it comes to presenting the journey of your strategy execution so far.

It’s more impressive visually, but also more in-depth. Heat maps, for example, could reveal which product groups are performing better than others; dive deeper into this and find that this is the result of fewer customers who are nevertheless spending more. You can then send out special offers to people of similar demographics and interests to try and pump this performance up even more. A small group of people love a particular product, so you’re introducing it to more people who are similar. That isn’t just numbers; it’s a story.

Imagine trying to present all the data present in this example, or this example, in a non-visual format. Would you be as convinced? Would you have been able to understand all the insights present as easily?

 

Summary

Data visualisation takes the malaise of numbers that usually amounts to market research and turns it into something more palatable, more accessible and ultimately more useful. If you want to stop letting the tsunami of data gathered by your business crash over your business strategy, then it’s time to invest in the tools that can turn those waves into hydropower: data visualisation.

 

To find out more about making the most of your market research, check out our free ebook below.

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Topics: Customer Insights


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