Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are often fueled by the passion of their founders and driven by a strong belief in their core product or service offering.
For these companies, delving into the administrative details, compiling reports and poring over spreadsheets can feel like a tedious distraction from the mission-oriented approach shared by the business’s team members.
As a B2B vendor, if you can help provide your SMB customers with tools that allow them to stay focused on what they’re most excited about, you can drive revenue and enhance customer loyalty.
Fortunately, business dashboards, like those provided by Company.com, can help these SMBs instantly access real-time data, execute performance-enhancing operations and review the results. By joining with us to help SMBs meet their needs, you can add value for your clients.
What Is a Business Dashboard?
A business dashboard in an easy-to-read display of company attributes and key performance indicators (KPIs), synthesized into a single view for quick and comprehensive understanding.
Specialized business dashboards may be available for specific departmental operations, like sales and marketing, or they may be more integrated and holistic. Some may also do more than just report metrics. They may provide opportunities for users to respond to changing circumstances by executing new strategies.
What Should Be Included on Business Dashboards for SMBs?
Different dashboards for SMBs require different features.
Let’s explore some of the types of business dashboards and what features they should include:
- High-level reporting dashboards: These can share data on overall business functions or granular information related to specific KPIs. For example, this category might include web analytics dashboards. These dashboards provide the kinds of information SMBs need to undertake thorough data analysis, leading to a better understanding of business outcomes. These dashboards should allow the user to obtain a great deal of valuable information at a glance while offering them the opportunity to explore different variables more meaningfully in expanded views.
- Department-level integrated dashboards: These kinds of dashboards might display information about specific actions that different departments have taken. For example, a marketing or sales dashboard that’s integrated with social media and email campaigns should be able to let SMBs observe how conversion rates have evolved over time. At the same time, these dashboards should set up opportunities to quickly create re-engagement campaigns based on those conversion rate trends. When these centralized dashboards are integrated with B2B marketplaces, SMB users can quickly adopt new business software without having to adapt to new reporting interfaces.
For SMBs, it’s also important to use business dashboards that are customizable and flexible without requiring a great deal of technical savvy. SMBs may want to view different KPIs other than the dashboard’s default, and they should be able to do so without having to reinvent the wheel or write a lot of code.
The Company.com Dashboard allows users to easily update which metrics are displayed on the Live Tiles they’re viewing.
Who Typically Needs Access to the Business Dashboard?
From company to company, different people will need to have access to certain business dashboards. For SMBs in particular, the company culture and the type of business dashboard in question will have an impact on who should be granted access.
First of all, some SMBs operate under a more collaborative structure while others might have more clearly defined lines of leadership. For organizations in which collective brainstorming is seen as the best way to devise actionable insights, a broader level of access might be desirable, at least for high-level metrics and KPIs.
However, it will be particularly important to make sure access is restricted for special dashboards that display anything more than the most simplistic business metrics.
SMBs should make sure that they do not widely share access to sensitive information or enable permissions that would allow the user to execute functions that they don’t have the authority to do. For example, if somebody isn’t properly trained on social media for the company, they shouldn’t be able to read a report saying social engagement has gone down and then fire off a post on their own.
Restricting access to some business dashboards is also a matter of security. According to a 2020 Cisco report on SMB cybersecurity, “stolen credentials” was the second leading cyber threat for companies with 250 to 499 employees.
Stolen credentials become a bigger cybersecurity risk when access is shared too broadly. Locking down access to business dashboards can help SMBs mitigate risk.
How Do SMBs Set Up Business Dashboards and How Can B2B Businesses Help?
Dashboard software varies from one vendor to the next, so there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. SMBs might not know where to shop or how to implement dashboard projects on their own.
As their B2B vendor, you have an opportunity to add value for your SMB customers by pointing the way for them.
The Company.com Dashboard is just such an opportunity. This solution can be co-branded or white-labeled to suit your needs, and we’re available to help you ensure a smooth implementation and integration process for your SMB customers. Request a demo today to learn more.
