Steering is understanding

Column Lucas Hulsebos – CEO

“Dad, you should buy Dogecoin”, my son said to me recently. Over the past few weeks, my son and I talked a lot about the cryptocurrency market. I tried to fathom his advice to buy certain currencies by using the different dashboards. What is behind the market? Why is it interesting at this moment? Unfortunately, the dashboards don’t show these insights; they only show what the development is. To get an answer to this, I tried to look at other sources, read about the reasons behind the platform, and read stories from experts. I was overwhelmed in the maze of data and information, not knowing which choices were good. The choice of whether to buy certain currencies ended up feeling a bit like gambling. I was desperately looking for a platform where all the information I needed could be brought together so I could steer.

I was reminded of that because at DVJ we have been very busy developing a new dashboard for tracking over the past few months. As a result, we have been thinking a lot about the meaning of a dashboard. Based on many discussions with academics and people from practice, we know that a dashboard is much more than just following whether you have chosen the right path. Above all, a dashboard must provide insight and not only show whether the goal is being realised, but also reveal the why behind it. Few dashboards can do this.

A brand develops in a certain way; driven by developments at a company, the competitors, and society. To understand the growth path, you need all the information, and a dashboard must give you this access. You need to be able to dive into the content, the target group, and integrate external sources. Steering or making the right choices is only possible if you understand why certain streams are moving up or down. A dashboard must provide insight into why something is moving in a certain direction, instead of just showing it. By building a completely new data warehouse and a new and intuitive front end in PowerBI, we have succeeded in meeting these requirements. Making tracking more “future proof” again. Now all that remains is tackling the crypto market.