Why All Financial Analytics Need Data Visualization For Exploration and Explanation

The ancient, overused adage of "a picture is worth a thousand words" can almost be considered a gross understatement in the business intelligence universe.

As BI experts, we know that data visualizations are worth way more than a paltry thousand words. This is particularly true within the self-contained narrative of finance where many hours are actually spent recalculating numbers into actual intelligence - for ourselves and for others.

All you finance people are currently nodding your heads in collective agreement, right? I thought so.

Columns, rows, colossal numbers, budgeting systems, spreadsheets and all other financial schema should be visually represented in a way that's digestible for the rest of the business. Because, at the end of the day, your data is only as good as your ability to communicate it. 

Taking advantage of our body's natural preattentive processing and the fact that we innately understand shapes, colors and symbols better than anything else, data visualizations and visual analytics for finance can help us comprehend what's going on much faster and more intuitively. 

Why? Because numbers and data give us nothing more than numeric values. Visualizations give you an opportunity to discern relationships in the data and doesn't distort what the data has to say.

You don't need the business intelligence industry barking this to you, though - it's your brain working the way it's actually supposed to.

Let's take a closer look at how some of these visualizations can translate deep, impenetrable data sets into more effective insight for those who are seeking more accessibility. 

The Historical Problem

I spent a good portion of my career as a Controller and Chief Financial Officer for ...