Executive Dashboards: Measuring Firm Performance and Gaining Competitive Edge - Essay Sample

Introduction

As organizations strive to develop a competitive edge over their rivals in today's global market, the idea of executive dashboard continues to gain more attention. According to Karna (2017), "an executive dashboard is a computer interface that displays the key performance indicators (KPIs) that corporate officers need to run an enterprise effectively". KPI entail a measurable value that calculates a firm's performance in relation to specific targets and in the process of assessing the company's success and performance (Karna, (2017). Moreover, the executive dashboard brings in an effective way for managers to make tactical and strategic decisions based on computer intelligence thereby getting better results. Thus, a company can assess its performance and whether it's achieving the set goals in real time.

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The importance of executive dashboards is undisputed for many firms that use this technology. Technology helps them to make a better decision and make changes where necessary. Therefore, an executive board that is poorly constructed can be catastrophic for corporations that use it since the decision makers that is the executive would be misled. The executive would make wrong decisions relating to their business and in the process lose to their competitors, retard in their growth and experience loss in market share and profitability. This is because decision making is key to any business organization and it can be the difference between success and failure. Additionally, poorly done dashboards can lead to wrong performance evaluation thereby hindering the firm's goals and objectives.

Analytics programs form the backbone of the executive dashboard since they interpret gathered data into information that a business can use (Karna, (2017). Therefore analytic programs should be properly developed, and one way to do that is for the developers to come up with a clear program purpose. Having clear purpose means the program will be effective in interpreting real-time data into useful information. In this case, the analysis team must constantly communicate with the executive to ensure the correct data relating to goals and objective is given. As much as information is necessary, giving too much to the system can affect it and hence only relevant data should be given (Buttner & Tullar, 2018).

Depending on the number of users, analytic programs should have features that incorporate all these needs. Buttner and Tullar (2018), notes that "competitive intelligence refers to information collected by a company about rival businesses and markets, which may then be analyzed to create more effective business strategies moving forward." By having competitive intelligence, business understands their environment better thereby making well-informed decisions. Use of unpublished and published sources, multifaceted strategy, ethical conduct, and speed are some of the tips for having competitive intelligence.

Trinity mindset is a tactical approach to shape an effective decision-making process (Baum, 2018). It can also be said to be a strategic approach in the development and design of executive dashboards that will ensure there is better decision making policy and in the process better results (Baum, 2018). The focus of the Trinity mindset is to establish a competitive advantage that is sustainable and also develop better decision-making platform through the help of key performance indicators. This happens by incorporation of outcome analysis, experience analysis, and behavior analysis (Baum, 2018). These three elements analyze customer outcomes, experience, and behavior enabling the management to make a better decision since customers are the ones that define whether a business is successful or not. Both executive dashboard and trinity mindset help businesses to make tactical, informed and strategic decisions based on real-time data they give (Buttner & Tullar, 2018). Moreover, the development of an effective executive dashboard is influenced by a trinity mindset especially in its design and development as it gives important information about the customers. When the Trinity mindset is well implemented, both executive dashboard and the analytic program will perform effectively.

References

Baum, P. (2018). How might we use Design Thinking for Digital Business Design and for creating Digital Business Value?.Buttner, E. H., & Tullar, W. L. (2018). A representative organizational diversity metric: a dashboard measure for executive action. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 37(3), 219-232.

Karna, N. (2017, September). Executive Dashboard as a Tool for Knowledge Discovery. In 2017 International Conference on Soft Computing, Intelligent System and Information Technology (ICSIIT) (pp. 331-336). IEEE.