Data visualization is one of the hottest and most ever-growing trends in the 3rd decade of this century. In fact, data visualization became so popular and demanded it formed an industry itself, fueled by tons of data visualization software programs and 3-rd party tools that connect those data visualization software to the data sources they are pulling info from.

If you are an Ecommerce, SaaS, or any kind of Big Data company, you simply need data visualization. Why? Let’s find out in the next section. 

And while we’re at it, here’s a Comparative Analysis of Data Visualization Tools: Google Data Studio, Power BI, and Tableau for your convenience.

What is Data Visualization and Its Role for Business Growth during forth industrial revolution

The Importance of Data Visualization

The answer to what is data visualization question is quite simple. Data visualization is the process of converting data into visual form. But why do it?

To help you figure out if you need to employ data visualization techniques or not, here are some tasks data visualization is aimed for and solves easily:

Convey a message

When you have a room filled with investors, potential buyers or highly-interested customers, you’d want your message to be translated quite easily. The message conveys that your business’s potential is exponentially growing, and here is a beautiful bar chart to support it. 

If you were to present the same info in raw numbers, very few attendants would actually take their time to go through piles of collected data to decide if your business is a worthwhile investment or not.

Make a decision

Time is an extremely crucial growth factor when it comes to markets fueled by competition. Say you and your nearest competitors are all monitoring industry trends. In this scenario, the team that can make decisions based on the collected market findings faster is the one who will lead in the next quarter.

Data Visualization is at the heart of the fast-decision making, as it collects a number of past trends and future predictions and turns all of them into an easy-to-read visual form. 

Thinking of visualizing your data?
Contact the InsightWhale team and we’ll turn data into a masterpiece for you 😉

Show a trend

Yes, this is the tastiest one on the list of importance of Data Visualization. Say you have a regular excel table. It contains your revenue or expenses in each of the columns and the source of where these numbers came from. By purely looking at the data it’s hard to tell if you spend more money in 2020 or 2019, and which of the quarters was actually the most and the least profitable.

This is why one of the leading and most valuable perks of effective data visualization is its ability to show trends. Just like in the example below you can see the difference it understanding the trend it makes by looking at the table and looking at the line trend chart.

Example of a reason for data visualization

Types of Data Visualization

Data Visualization tools offer a large number of data visualization techniques and ways in which collected information can be displayed visually. Here are some of the most common options you can employ to showcase your visualized data:  

  • Line Chart
  • Histogram
  • Bar Chart
  • Radar or Spider Chart
  • Tree Map
  • Funnel Chart
  • Heat Map
  • Tables
  • Indicators
  • Pie Chart
  • Maps

Effective Data Visualization Checkpoints

Let’s be honest. Data Visualization is only effective is it’s accurate. You wouldn’t want to show your large numbers around only to later find out they are actually corrupted and are very far from reality, like in this very real case study. 

For this reason, we are presenting some useful tips on how to make sure your Data Visualization representation is effective:

  • Quality assure your data source set up to make sure collected data is accurate
  • Proportions on your charts are accurate and do not represent a false data relationship, which can be spoiled in man-made data visualization, but easily granted with a professional data visualization software
  • Metrics and dimensions are configured in a way that easily translates the meaning, allowing you to draw conclusions after a quick review 
  • The visual view is convenient and executed using intuitive UI / UX with information divided into semantic blocks, filters placed in the right areas, and graphs that do not interfere with each other.
  • The data is complete, contains information from all sources, including advertising cabinets (Facebook, AdWords, etc.), data on expenses and revenues (Quickbooks, etc.), the data on the performance of your website or application (Google Analytics, Amplitude, etc.), lead quality and customer data (CRM, etc.).
  • Emphasize important trends with colour, but do not overdo visualization with too many clip art, image, unnecessary info and colour elements that can turn any great chart very distractive.  

Also, when on the market for the best Data Visualization software, check out our awesome Data Visualization tools comparison articles, you’ll love them:

Data Visualization in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

What is the fourth industrial revolution and why is Data Visualization crucial for business growth during this fourth industrial revolution, you’d ask.

First things first, what are these industrial revolutions and why is the 4th one so important? 

  1. The first industrial revolution that took place in the 18th – 19th centuries, signified a transition from an agrarian way of life to industrialization.
  2. The second industrial revolution arose with the appearance of electricity and introduced electrical devices for mass production.
  3. The third industrial revolution, or the so-called digital revolution, is remembered by many as it marked the creation of computers and IT, and began in the middle of the 20th century. 
  4. The fourth industrial revolution is the one happening at the moment. It involves such technologies as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), robotics, blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT), which are disrupting the regular way of life as we know it. 

In the ever-changing world of technology where data is more valuable than oil, failing to properly collect, monitor and visualize data will eventually result in going out of business, no matter how brilliant the company currently is.  

The ability to properly collect information and make valuable insights based on it is the winning competitive advantage during the fourth industrial revolution we’re in. And as you remember from the section above, there is no way to make fast decisions based on data without visualizing it. 

Join the progressive, goal-oriented business approach by contacting us today – helping companies become data-driven is exactly what we do 🙂