The dashboard has been the go-to delivery paradigm for executive decision-support information systems for more than 30 years. Dashboards were first used by Business Objects and Cognos, and they are still used today by Qlik, Tableau, Power BI, and other manufacturers. Dashboard dinosaurs continue to use the same paradigm without considering whether there might be a better method to convey insights.
Some Vendors Have Dashboard Locks
At a trade exhibition, every BI vendor will have a giant image of a dashboard in front of them. One rectangular device with certain charts on it is being marketed by every vendor. This indicates that people believe dashboards to be the only method of informing the company about information. Vendors have so attempted to employ dashboards for a variety of use cases for which they are inappropriate. Dashboards are effective in keeping an eye on a company. Their main use case is to make it simple for consumers to consume a known set of data. However, vendors have attempted to cram dashboards with ever more features. Use mobile as an illustration. The early mobile BI apps were merely dashboards on a device. Vendors simply made another dashboard without considering the user experience. The narrative capabilities of Tableau are another illustration. Users are just being asked to create a new dashboard that tells a story, not the model or the way data is provided to users. These "dashboard dinosaurs" aren't questioning whether there are more effective ways to convey information or think past dashboards.
Another use case that companies are currently attempting to incorporate into dashboards is finding insights. However, dashboards struggle to slice and dice data. Users need something that encourages them to ponder fresh questions in order to be able to find insights. A dashboard will never be the optimal way to handle those skills.
Dashboards Are Going to Be Hit by the Meteor
There are indications that the dashboard's function is about to change. Many new providers operating in this market are unencumbered by dashboards. They understand that building yet another dashboard won't be enough to succeed in the business intelligence (BI) sector. You need to act in a completely new way if you want to win.
As more BI processes become automated, I think the vendor that succeeds will be the one that figures out an innovative way to give people the information they want in the way they want to get it. For instance, some of the smaller vendors are considering cutting-edge email and mobile distribution techniques. Users won't require a dashboard to get automatic insight, they are aware of this. Vendors must adapt their ways of thinking in order to truly innovate, and that's not simple.
Yellowfin has historically been accused of being overly dashboard-centric, just like every other vendor. Business Intelligence Dashboard is used in our initial attempt at automated insights, but we quickly found that they didn't actually bring much value. The dashboard is excellent at tracking a business, but it can't assist users in delving deeper into their data or discovering fresh insights. It's time for dinosaurs to go beyond their dashboards and rethink the data distribution paradigm for users because new suppliers are focusing on creative methods to give insights to business users.
