3 Signs Your Practice Needs a Business Dashboard

Not all business intelligence tools are created equal and technology is constantly evolving. Today’s business dashboard is more robust, intuitive and equipped to meet the challenges of modern business management. (Not only compared to antiquated software, but especially compared to spreadsheets.) No wonder, from industry-specific to general business, entrepreneurial resources are talking about the advantages of leveraging a dashboard to meet your business objectives.

Still, how do you know your practice actually needs one?

If you need hard evidence that your practice needs this modern technology, or you're wondering if the symptoms you're feeling have a remedy, then look no further. Here are 3 clear signs you need a business dashboard for the success of your practice (and perhaps for the well-being of your sanity).

1. You’re Using Spreadsheets for Number Reporting

Spreadsheets can do amazing things and are sufficient when it comes to organizing information or datasets. But spreadsheet reporting doesn’t provide real-time data. (Guess which business intelligence tool does provide real-time reporting?)

Unfortunately, a team member can’t look at a spreadsheet and determine how their performing in real time in relation to the goal. Neither can a business owner gain real-time performance checks and balances and up-to-date progress evaluations from a static spreadsheet.

(Take a deep breath.) Nor do spreadsheets automatically present information in an uncluttered, clear and concise way. Instead, it takes manual effort (and time) to create graphs and visualizations to simplify complex data. (And you have to be super tech-savvy to perform mathematical, statistical, financial and organizational transformations on sets of data to duplicate the benefits of an automated business dashboard.)

Not to mention, spreadsheets are not sexy. It’s hard to get a team excited about the valuable information a spreadsheet is conveying. An automated business dashboard, on the other hand, provides a fun experience and simplifies their work, not complicates it, so team buy-in is natural.

You can’t tell me this dashboard view isn’t sexier than a spreadsheet:

Imagine instant access to your marketing, practice and financial data all in one tool. Plus, visualizing that information in a way that makes it easier to assess where you need to act in order to improve operations and grow your practice.

That’s a business dashboard!

Which is why using spreadsheets is a clear sign your practice needs a business dashboard. Because if your business intelligence tool can’t tell you which areas of your practice are doing well or struggling, or deliver clear, actionable data to you and your team, then it’s not really business intelligence. Is it?

2. You Lack the Ability to Unlock Hidden Insights Into Your Practice

With the evolution of business intelligence tools, came the automated business dashboard. Nowadays, with an intelligent business dashboard, you can monitor real-time data, identify trends and issues, fine-tune operations, and run comparative analyses to unlock hidden insights into your practice.

Plus, if you’re running reports in different systems, trying to compare your data and make connections, then you’re working way too hard. Let’s be real, you’re also gaining just a fraction of the actionable insight you could be gaining by using a business dashboard to aggregate and analyze your data. In fact, a well-designed business dashboard pulls all your business data into one place and helps you unlock the value in it by simplifying your data.

With a dashboard, you’ll know such things as:

• Exactly how much it’s costing you to bring in a new patient per each marketing channel.
• The lifetime value of a new patient.
• Where to focus your attention in order to increase your # of new patients, case acceptance, and overall profitability.
• How effective and profitable your marketing, treatment planning, and systems are.
• What trends exist in treatments, patient numbers, new patients vs. returning, and more.

That’s the type of advantages that come from leveraging an intelligent business dashboard for the success of your practice. Hence, why your practice needs one.

3. Your Team is Unable to Engage in Important Metrics & KPIs

This red flag exists when you and your team are unable to access or understand performance data. Also, there’s a lack of engagement when individual performance data isn’t directly connected to the company’s important KPIs (key performance indicators) and objectives.

Not only does a well-designed dashboard help you understand performance and what drives performance, but a shareable dashboard provides your team immediate performance feedback as well. So, everyone on your team can have more control over reaching their goals. And each individual team member can actually see their personal contribution to the company’s overall success.

Achieve Maximum Growth With Minimal Investment

It’s of great importance that you take an in-depth look at what design capabilities you require in a dashboard so it’s easy for you and your team to use and has a significant impact on growing your bottom line. In other words, you need a dashboard that turns your business data into valuable information you can act upon. With the right technology, you can increase profitability and growth without investing an arm and a leg, or all your time and energy.

So, if you’re in the market for a business intelligence dashboard, click here for some important points to check before you buy!