Data, data, data everywhere! But not a drop that can be deciphered?
It can be easy to feel like this when confronted with a mass of lists and tables full of just words and numbers.
Yes, it’s wonderful that we have so much data at our disposal in this day and age. And don’t forget, volume is one of the 3 Vs used when describing Big Data (along with velocity and variety) but it can sometimes feel like we’re drowning in data.
To overcome this, we need to ensure we’re using the data to its best advantage. If your business is unable to draw insights from that data because you can’t visualise it or interpret it in a meaningful way, then perhaps it’s time to think again.
As businesses first start out, their use of data centres around specific tasks e.g. for sales inventories or for payroll. As they grow, they can use data in a more sophisticated way to analyse how the business is really doing.
Of course, financial services is one sector where complex data is even more prolific than most. As well as using the data intelligently for internal purposes, the challenge is also how to present reams of figures in a meaningful way to your clients.
It’s worth remembering everyone is different. Some people thrive on words and love crosswords, anagrams etc; while others love puzzles, charts and diagrams. The latter are more likely to find it easier to see or understand information visually. But even the most mathematically inclined and data savvy individual may not spot trends or patterns in data without some form of graphical representation.
Data visualisation can help with this. It simply means any method of presenting information that can be interpreted visually, without needing to be a beautifully designed, complex or costly infographic. Examples you may be familiar with, without realising, are an election map showing results, a family tree or a Tube map.
The most common way of using data visualisation to organise your data is in charts or graphs – the three most popular are bar, line and pie charts. These are all useful for different things; bar charts are best for comparisons, line charts are good for showing trends over time and pie charts are best for showing percentages. Translating this kind of data to a financial context, a bar chart would work well for different product types or to show asset allocation, a line chart is good for displaying fund performance over a number of years and a pie chart is useful for depicting the different risk levels.
Data visualisation found in CleverAdviser’s cloud based app
Getting more complex you may want to investigate such exciting concepts as scatterplots, sunburst, or waterfall charts! It’s just a question of experimenting and seeing which is the most useful for displaying your type of information.
So that’s a quick dip into the power of data visualisation. It’s certainly worth thinking about how it can bring your data alive and draw real insights about how to grow your business.
If you’d like to see how we use data visualisation at CleverAdviser, book a demo today!
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