Get startedGet started for free

Strategic dashboard

1. Strategic dashboard

Strategic dashboards provide enterprise-wide business insights.

2. The forward-thinking dashboard

The purpose is to monitor long-term company strategies and measure performance against strategic objectives. It provides aggregated data with infrequent updates, often designed as a static snapshot and built to support senior-level managers and executives.

3. Strategic dashboard benefits

This dashboard facilitates strategic planning for a specific course of action. It may help answering the following questions: where did we fall short of our targets? Which of the objectives have we completed? Which objectives are no longer needed?

4. Strategic dashboard benefits

Strategic success indicators can be shown in comparison with their target goals to identify the strength or weaknesses of current performance.

5. Strategic dashboard benefits

Strategy evaluation identifies how well a strategy has been implemented and executed. Consider the following questions: Is our strategic area still relevant? Which of our objectives have we completed?

6. Strategic dashboard benefits

Success metrics are aggregated to provide a high-level summary.

7. Types of the strategic dashboard

These dashboards are typically used by executive leadership and can be classified by their role. The marketing dashboard is designed for Chief Marketing Officer who helps the company meet the marketing demands. The executive dashboard is built for Chief Administrative Officer with the main focus on the company's overall health and course of action. The financial dashboard is built for Chief Financial Officer focusing on specific financial goals and strategies.

8. Strategic dashboard graphical components

The strategic dashboard should include some high-level metrics to monitor whether goals are being met.

9. Strategic dashboard graphical components

Indicators display specific strategic success KPIs.

10. Strategic dashboard graphical components

Bar charts evaluate a specific success value across different categories.

11. Strategic dashboard graphical components

A combo chart is a combination of two charts to make a quick comparison.

12. Strategic dashboard graphical components

A bullet graph is used to track performance against a target.

13. A special word about bullet graphs

Let's take a closer look at a bullet graph, which is a variation of a bar chart.

14. A special word about bullet graphs

The bullet graphs are best used for making comparisons between actual and target values.

15. A special word about bullet graphs

They are not suitable, for example, for analyzing change-over-time or showing a data distribution.

16. A special word about bullet graphs

The bar shows the progress toward a goal or target presented typically as a reference line. Here the purple bar represents the actual value and compares it with a specific target value. The gray areas represent additional information about the performance level: bad, satisfactory, and good. When the main bar reaches the black line, the target is met.

17. A special word about bullet graphs

For tracking several goals, color coding could be added. However, adding too many categories, shown on the bottom left, will make this graph more confusing.

18. A special word about bullet graphs

Thus, the graph with fewer categories shown on the bottom right is a better option.

19. A special word about period over period graph

The period-over-period graphic is used to compare two periods. In fact, the chart message depends on the type of graphics you choose. A single value graphic is used with KPIs to show a change in value immediately. Period-over-period columns or bar charts focus on the monthly or quarterly comparison. Period-over-period line charts highlight trends providing strategic insights into the overall performance.

20. More about indicators and gauge charts

Success indicators are one of the most important metrics for the strategic dashboard. They can visualize a single value such as a company's total annual revenue-to-date or two related important metrics (total revenue and number of deals, for example). Gauges are useful for indicating the "health" of a company's key strategic value comparing it to a goal. The single value can represent an absolute value or percentage of a target value. Adding color coding can further enhance visual interpretation by indicating where immediate attention is needed.

21. Let's practice!

Let's see how strategic dashboards are used.