Beware of free dashboards

A performance dashboard is a critical component of a business performance management (BPM) application, which is itself fundamental to any company that wants to remain competitive in an increasingly cut-throat business environment.

Dashboards have become en vogue in the last 15 years in IT, as companies have come to understand that a single visual insight into company performance, according to various metrics, as predefined ahead of time, can be of great use. Rather than having to process and interpret vast numbers of paper-based reports, management can - at a glance - see what is going on in the business, where the critical indicators are and what to do about them. Just as the information on a dashboard enables a driver intuitively, so a business dashboard provides the ability for an executive to steer the company with ease.

Enterprise dashboard solutions enable business performance tracking based on information drawn from any and all databases, business intelligence, spreadsheets and operational applications throughout an organisation. It goes without saying, therefore, that a successful BPM rollout is of the utmost importance to any organisation.

That's where the danger of the cheap dashboard comes in. Firstly, because it costs little or nothing, it may not be subjected to the same rigorous processes that govern any other IT initiative.

Picture the scene - a few finance people download a dashboard and begin using it. They start showing it to others and pretty soon a whole range of people are playing around with a solution about which they have little understanding, and which is most likely built on information that is either incorrect or out of date. Critically, it most probably is not measuring what matters most to the organisation.

There are other considerations too. Free or cheap dashboards are generally aimed at customers who have not been exposed to them before. Vendors present them as a useful way to manage data. However, over time, as these users become more and more exposed to the benefits of a dashboard, their requirements will evolve and they will want more from the solution.

There are four challenges for any organisation rolling out a dashboard solution:

1. Making sure the data the dashboard shows is correct.
2. Ensuring the data is delivered timeously - three-week old information is of no use to anyone.
3. Integrating the dashboard with existing systems.
4. Ensuring companies choose an enterprise-level solution - particularly in the case of complex businesses or organisations with hundreds of users.

If it's free, it cannot be tailored to specific requirements

Adrian van der Merwe is MD of 8th Man Consulting.

Anyone who has ever downloaded free software from the Internet will know that there are major limitations to any solution that comes at no cost. First and foremost, if it's free, it cannot be tailored to specific requirements. The vendor's assumption is that most users will be content with the generic version of their software. From the user's perspective, they soon find that it's simply not possible to adapt the dashboard to present their required view of the data.

Data is the second critical point here. Just because a company has put the data into its system, it does not make the view provided by the dashboard correct. A company may have input bad quality data or the data may be obsolete or out of date. This will render the dashboard meaningless.

So, what's the best route to take? I always recommend to clients that they begin with the end in mind. The fact is that an optimally functioning dashboard is going to tell a story. What story does a company want to hear? Based on the answers to that question, a company can determine what data it needs and where to get it from. This question will also enable it to determine whether or not it actually has the correct data.

Primarily, it's about being able to tailor a dashboard solution to the unique needs of the organisation. The point is that as with so many other things in life, you get what you pay for. A cheap solution may be seen as a quick win for the organisation, but it needs to be part of a bigger process. Otherwise it's just flashing lights and very little substance.