What is a Dashboard?
The term dashboard receives its title from the dashboard in automobiles. It is the placement in a car that works as the instrument cluster, which facilitates the driver to keep an eye on all the vehicle functions. Based on the same function in an automobile, in business world, the dashboard gives a glance of what is going wrong and where. It also recommends the right side of the business. The corporate world is always looking for the best solution to guide them regarding their business. They wanted to have some assistance to help them look for the situation going against them. The solution was to direct them when some maintenance was needed or to determine the extremes in the business temperature. The solution came as none other than the dashboards. The dashboard is a collection of data which in detail portrays the summaries, important trends, comparisons and exceptions.
The corporate world is always looking for the best solution to guide them regarding their business. They wanted to have some assistance to help them look for the situation going against them.
The solution was to direct them when some maintenance was needed or to determine the extremes in the business temperature. The solution came as none other than the dashboards. The dashboard is a collection of data which in detail portrays the summaries, important trends, comparisons and exceptions.
The dashboard is a complete picture of the business, hence becomes a guide for the businessmen to develop their business according to the market trends and needs. In the world of e-commerce were business is going online; the dashboard role cannot be ignored, because the market itself is the part of the larger market. The dashboard in e-commerce plays an equally important role, as it does, in common day to day market.
Let’s Classify
The dashboards are classified according to the roles they are likely to play in the market analysis. As per this division, the dashboards are classified into four major categorizations. These four are: strategic, analytical, operational and informational.
1. Strategic dashboards are for the managerial assistance. This help can be rendered at any level, by providing a quick review after close monitoring of the success, failure, weaknesses and strengths of the business. This dashboard works at higher levels; analyzing the performance and making forecasts. Strategic dashboards usually are based on the information coming from daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly information. This data is rarely subject to the changes, which are constantly occurring.
2. Analytical dashboards as the name indicates are for analytical purpose. They are used to highlight the background of the business, make a comparative analysis with others, trace back the history and work as the performance evaluators from market point of view. This kind of dashboard interacts with the data going deep into the details. The underlying details.
3. Operational dashboards are created differently as compared to the rest of the dashboards like strategic or analytical Dashboards. Their aim is to monitor the workings at all levels. They can be a great support for the strategic and the analytical, but they are different from them. They provide a support to them by giving operational suggestions about the events that constantly change and require utmost attention and concern of the top management.
4. Informational dashboard is the one that gathers all the material collected through analysis, and then informs the higher levels about the suggested steps.
Dashboard and E-Commerce
Over a period of time it seems that e commerce has become an essential part of our lives. The market rules prevail here too. E-commerce web development needs support from all sources for establishing a great market place. Dashboard works here too. The balanced dashboard contributes in four different ways to boon e-commerce:
- Through Transactional Measures: We all know very well about the conversion tracking, but it is of no use if the set of metrics we have, is without any means. It us not just these metrics, but a collection of factors that can have implications for the brand being sold. By using the shopping funnel or related traffic detail, the views and behavior of the customer becomes evident.
- Through Customer measures for repeat which are more preferable than the standard transactional measures. Once the customer returns, it means reliability and trust. The business is customer friendly.
- Through the feedback measures of the customer, which keep the client and the customer tied to-gather. The customer response is highly valuable in case of e commerce. The dashboard maintains the link between the two essential parties in the business. The data about the customers visiting the business and the data gathered hereby will help in estimating the better business prospects.
- Through the internal process measures: The web analytical pack is not enough to uplift your business portal. It is highly important to study the various positive activities which can have a lasting impact on the business portal. Time tracking is helpful tool to determine such activities.
Conclusion
Once the dashboard is successfully established, the baseline is there, consisting of different measures and intervals. Hence, dashboard plays a vital role in supporting the e commerce business web portal development because:
- It communicates easily because of being simple and easy to understand.
- It offers least distractions.
- It helps to uplift the business by providing vital information.
- It influences the information by the human perceptions visually conceived.