Strange how things go in waves. This week seems to have been the week of real-time dashboards.
SeeWhy Software has helped Guinness improve the timeliness of its deliveries to North America by 60 percent. FIRM's Confirmit survey and reporting software spots problems that might otherwise be ignored or overlooked.
Neither program is new. But both are interesting in the sense that they are probes into the real world and both 'tip off' their users of problems through a dashboard in real-time. SeeWhy does it by comparing operational data with historical information, alerting users to significant deviations. In the case of Guinness (no pun intended), the events are stages in the delivery process from Dublin to the US seaboard (via an intermediate deep water port). SeeWhy can, of course, work with much higher frequency events.
With Confirmit, surveys can be built, executed and reports delivered very quickly. APIs enable other programs to pick up information. In a new development, the company is working with 'attitude' surveys based on users' reactions to specific events, such as a customer support call. Within a very short time they are asked about their satisfaction and earlier indicators of problems can rescue a potentially failing relationship. In this case, Confirmit describes the events as "key moments of truth"
In both cases, continual monitoring means that problems can be spotted instantly and organisations are able to intervene in real time. So much better than traditional reporting which focuses on what's happened in the past. Both companies choose the same analogy for this: "It's like driving a car by looking in the rear-view mirror."
David makes an interesting comparison between two companies providing real time dashboards. I have to take issue though – the main benefit isn’t that the data is displayed on a dashboard in real time, but that analysis is happening continually.
ReplyDeleteNow maybe this is splitting hairs, but let me explain. Real time dashboards enable you to check the status of any key performance indicator at any point in time and be confident that the data is up to date.
But while this is a ‘nice to have’ most businesses don’t want their staff staring at dashboards all day, they want them focusing on operations. So the benefit of both these solutions is that they enable business operations staff to focus on their jobs, and not have to worry about constantly scanning displays looking for problems. Technology does this for you by continuously monitoring performance, and proactively notifying them soon as there is a problem. In SeeWhy’s case this can also initiate an automated corrective response where no human input is required at all.
This is different from the way that data is typically handled by businesses today. Most businesses use fixed calendar periods and systems updated in batches. But increasingly business is continuous, global and always on. New systems being built reflect this. Continous Business Intelligence? Perhaps this is a more relevant description of real time business intelligence than a focus on dashboards. I’ve written more about this at my blog http://blog.seewhy.com
Oh, and you can always check the dashboard if you just want visibility across the business!
You know how it is with headlines Charles. It was a tossup between 'real-time monitoring, analysis and response' and getting the SeeWhy and Confirmit names in.
ReplyDeleteI did what sub-editors do: went for the snappiest title even if it didn't quite hit the mark.
Thanks for clarifying things for the readers.
For me it's also less about the dashboards (and the surveys, for that matter) per se than it is about how the business can action the data.
ReplyDeleteI suppose both companies talk about "rear view mirrors" for different reasons. While many businesses monitor and act on KPIs, I'm always mindful of the small print in the investment companies' ads: past performance doesn't guarantee future performance.
Which is another way of saying that trends don't always continue in the direction they've always gone and one can't accurately predict the future from previous results.
Because changes in attitude precede changes in behavior, attitude is a forward looking indicator. It therefore needs to be measured as close to a customer's experience with a business as possible. Like Charles, then, we advocate continual data collection, analysis and reporting.
Reporting needs to include alerts in order to address urgent customer issues, as well as dashboards to provide a high level view into how attitude changes. It needs to be both operational and strategic.
Confirmit delivers what we call "Key Attitudinal Indicators" that act as leading indicators into business performance.
KAIs have one other important function, which is providing the "why" that gives insight into the "what" that is a KPI.
KAIs don't replace KPIs but instead they complement them.
Thanks Gary. Seems like you and Charles are slightly disgruntled by this bit:
ReplyDelete"both 'tip off' their users of problems through a dashboard in real-time"
Sounds like I should have split the 'tip off' and the dashboard.
Hi David,
ReplyDeleteNot at all disgruntled - I'm a big proponent of dashboards providing visual cues into what needs to be managed.
I accept that some people don't want to have to monitor them and instead prefer alerts, so the technology needs to support both.
The key is making sense of lots of information - making it actionable.
Gary
Interesting debate, but I must say that I think you are arguing semantics to a large degree. The moot points are not that dashboards have value; that realtime information is important; that KPIs should be and need to be tracked; whether dashboards can indicate problems; that intervention or action needs to be taken when problems are identified, but is what action, and how action should be taken. Surely that is (or should be) determined by the organisation and not the dashboard, or solution provider. Value can be gained from dashboards and their providers in a number of ways at different levels of sophistication, but ultimately the most important thing, I believe, is that the organisational strategists are determining how data is displayed, how action should be taken and indeed that action IS taken. They are the people who need to be given a level of control that can scale to their level of technical ability, (that's where many dashboard providers often fall down, and solution providers like www.blueboxwidget.com make good sense).
ReplyDelete