GUESTBLOG – At our startup Saleduck we installed a nice screen in the middle of our office. This screen, known as a KPI dashboard, shows us the most important stats and traffic of our various platforms. Not only does it look good and professional in our office, the KPI dashboard has many more advantages.
1. Overview for everyone
The main reason for placing a KPI dashboard is probably because you want to give yourself and your employees a nice overview of the company’s progress. You can program the KPI Dashboard in any way you want, so that the most important statistics of your company are shown. A nice idea is to put meaningful Google Analytics or social data on the dashboard which are updated realtime.
We advise to hang the screen somewhere where all employees can see it – not where visitors and clients can immediately see it. Of course, the statistics of the company are for internal use only.
2. Engagement of employees
Another great advantage of a KPI dashboard in your office: engagement of your employees. With a KPI dashboard all employees can see the company’s progress, which means they will more easily feel involved in the company’s growth. An employee can relate to the company better when he knows what’s going on. When showing various statistics the KPI dashboard can inspire employees to think on how to improve these specific stats.
3. Trigger an internal competition
On the dashboard you can show statistics of the company as a whole, but also from certain divisions. For our international platforms we, for example, track each country for their performance. The result: a friendly competition between country managers erupted. This not only increased their productivity, it also encouraged them to share knowledge. This effect is one of the greatest benefits from having a KPI dashboard in your office.
4. Saving time
Plain simple, the KPI dashboard shows you realtime statistics so you don’t have to plan moments to tell your employees about the company’s performance all the time. Also from the data on the screen you can point something out easily. In a years time this will actually save you many hours. If you configured your screen correctly you always have the right information in front of you. As the old saying goes: time is money!
5. Setting your company’s goals automatically
For our startup Saleduck we obviously always want to increase our number of visitors. Using our KPI dashboard we can easily set both short and long term goals. It often happens that we set week or month goals with bonuses. The dashboard is a nice way to keep track.
6. Seeing and showing team results
We believe a KPI dashboard even manages to bring your team closer together, since you can show business results on the screen and also do announcements. For instance, you could tell what a certain division in your company achieved that day. This will increase the company’s synergy and people are credited for what they achieved.
Here’s how we did it
In our office we configured the screen with Geckoboard. This tool makes it easy to use different widgets and data input.
The tool is easily configurable and it supports services like Twitter and Google analytics. However, Geckoboard also has some restrictions in designs. If you would like to configure the lay-out of your screen you might want to go with another tool. Klipfolio might be a good alternative. You will actually spend more time configuring your board, but you might be able to make a board that’s more in line with your personal preferences. Klipfolio isn’t as compatible with standard widgets like Geckoboard has, but is more in depth with Google Analytics for instance.
Computers
You don’t need a expansive computers to display a KPI dashboard. You can go as cheap as a Raspberry PI for about 40 euro. We chosen to use a 130 euro Intel Compute Stick with build in WiFi to do the trick.
Screens
Screens for your dashboard come in all sizes and price ranges. Screens are available for prices starting around 200 euro at any electronics store. However, you might prefer a better and bigger screen so you can fit more statistics on while looking good as well. The only thing you need is a HDMI slot on your computer.
Domingo Karsten is managing director and partner at Amsterdam based coupon platform Saleduck.