We live in a world of data. How many patients a medical practice saw in one month, how many power outages a city experienced, or how much money a government agency is spending are all examples of information gleaned from data. Data always has a story to tell, but do you know how to tell that story in a way that can inform your business’s strategy or solve problems?
When you’re looking at the health of your company, everything might look like it’s going according to plan. As long as you and your employees stick to it, sales and profits will continue to increase. But, this is a pitfall that many companies fall into —judging their business by how it is functioning on the surface instead of analyzing the data that can give a more accurate picture. However, data analysis is only the first step. You have to understand what the data is telling you and find an accessible and memorable way to tell the story to your employees and other stakeholders.
Curious to know how data storytelling could benefit you? Keep reading for three ways it can help your business work smarter.
What Is Data Storytelling?
At its core, data storytelling is the conversion of raw data and computations to an understandable layout that would help others comprehend their meaning and significance.
One simple example of this is if you were the owner of a fast food restaurant and you were curious to know which burger your customers ordered the most. Is it the chicken sandwich or the traditional beef patty? Based on your monthly sales’ raw data, the numbers could be converted to a pie chart where you could see which “piece” of the pie is bigger, giving you a general idea of your customer’s burger preference.
How Can Businesses Use Data Storytelling?
There are many ways that data storytelling can be used to help inform strategies and make decisions. While use cases may vary depending on the industry, here are a few ways businesses can use data storytelling to their advantage:
Problem Solving
Raw data can be confusing to navigate and understand as a whole to individuals without a data analyst background. But with data storytelling, these raw data can be turned into easily understandable visuals, which could convey the solution to a problem your team has been facing. A bank’s data analyst, for example, may use data storytelling to consolidate data and discover a more viable solution to an overall work process. Additionally, they’ll be able to easily communicate the solution with their colleagues without spending time explaining rows and rows of data.
Understand Employee Trends
Data storytelling can help a business understand how employees are behaving at work, and the tools and platforms they’re using (or not using). A good understanding of what is helping employees with their jobs allows a business to make smarter choices of what to invest in and what to stop doing. For example, a communications professional could collect data on how many employees are using the company intranet and use storytelling to determine if they should invest in upgrades to the platform or find a new way of communicating with staff.
Detect Fraudulent Activities
Data storytelling could work as an autonomous whistleblower against fraudulent activities in your company. Using raw data, storytelling could help uncover trends and patterns that raise red flags of fraudulent activity and help the average employee understand it. A healthcare company’s fraud department, for example, could use this to detect a false claim or misuse of information without having to spend the time and money to hire an analyst.
Conclusion
Data storytelling is a must-have for businesses today. Not only can it help with turning complex numbers into comprehensible visuals, it can also inform progress toward your business goals with evidence-based strategizing and decision making.
If you are looking for an analytics consulting firm to help with your business’s data storytelling for you, look no further than Gemini Data. We can help bring ample context and commentary to your data so you can fully appreciate and understand insights.
