Hello! Welcome back to another weekly blog. This week, I have very much still been hyped on data visualisation! Continuing from my previous posts, you can see what I like about visualisation and why I believe measurement is key to management. I can count on one hand the main KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) to track… and I did! Which is why I now present the top five data metrics that I believe are essential to success.

At the top of the list, we start at the top of the P&L. It will be no surprise to many that Revenue is one of my top five pieces of data to track. Revenue is one of the clearest indications of size a company can have and is often the most important metric for companies. Famously, Amazon didn’t make a profit for the first 6 years of trading as the priority was to increase market share (revenue). In my opinion, the best way to display this visually is with two charts split by month. The first is a bar (column) chart showing the results of each month with the target on show to know what you’re aiming for. This also gives instant comparison to previous months. The second chart I would like to see for revenue is a line chart showing cumulative revenue throughout the year. Compare this also to a target line, and you can quickly see if you’re on target for success! Both charts show the same data, but just changing the display provides different insights. The next level to this would be adding the prior year in a muted colour, because everyone loves a 3-way… data comparison of actual, target, and prior year.

Second on the list is stock levels. When you get good at Power BI (or your data modelling software of choice), you can have moving targets. And moving targets make me want to whack out my speedos! No, not for swimming; I mean for data visualisation! I have often been asked how much is the best level of stock? The answer, as all people who have written coursework know, it depends. It depends on the type of business you run and how stock-intensive it is. If you ask a production team, they’ll say you can never have too much; if you ask finance, they’ll say be lean and mean. Ultimately, there is a happy level that suits both camps. However, everyone agrees that stock needs to increase with size, so having a speedo with your stock turnover ratio on display is a great way to ensure you are within a healthy range for your business model. Put a nice green range in the middle, fading to red at each extreme, and you have clarity on if you have a healthy amount of stock.

The third may be a controversial one, but in my opinion, it is important to visualise warranty costs and concessions to customers. If you sell bikes, it might be the cost of replacing a wheel you didn’t attach properly. As with the previous example the acceptable proportion of revenue that your warranty costs make up will vary upon industry, though I am sure all have given concessions to customers at various points. Unlike the stock level example earlier, though, we can all agree that lower warranty levels are better, so I will begrudgingly pack my speedos away and instead bring out a single bar chart. This bar chart tracks your percentage of warranty costs to revenue and will go more red the higher it goes (parameters based on industry averages and internal targets). This is where colour is the main visualisation; the bar chart axis simply provides a bearing of performance vs the target indicated.

Fourth on my list is cash flow visualisation. Everyone has heard the statistic that 90% of businesses fail in the first five years. The comment that follows is that it’s primarily cash flow, not profits, that finishes the job. This is where having a visualisation of what cash is currently available in the business is crucial. For the short run, I’d visualise this with a line graph over the past rolling 30 days, glowing bright red when accessing an overdraft. Alongside this, a rolling 12-month waterfall graph to show month-by-month cash movement helps give a better visualisation of cash flow throughout the year.

Fifth and finally, we have the bottom line at the bottom of the blog. That’s right, profit! The same graphs can be used which are devised to show revenue as discussed above. But we can all agree that net profit is key for business. Fun fact: in his book and time on the Diary of a CEO podcast, Richard Branson discussed that it wasn’t until after he started Virgin Atlantic that he understood the difference between net and gross profit. Just shows that business owners need to focus on what they’re good at (in this case coming up with ideas) and hire the right people to handle the rest. Many argue that government services and charities don’t focus on net profits as their primary aim. And though this is true, profit is still a key indicator of their performance.

And there we go, another blog! Soon, I will be posting many pictures and visuals about what I have been working on recently which ties into my recent flurry of blogs about data visualisation and management techniques. I hope you have enjoyed it, and if you feel there are key metrics I have missed, please let me know! Also, if you’d like me to send you some examples of the visuals I’ve talked about, feel free to send me a message on LinkedIn or email: Alistair@thebusinessessentials.co.uk.

P.S. If you’re interested in my speedos, you might be interested in the time I went swimming with dolphins. I was terrified initially, but I had prepared by learning dolphin language on Dualingo for the three months leading up to it, and when the time came, the dolphin and I had a great chat. What can I say… we just clicked!

About the Author

Project Manager, Finance Manager, Problem Solver, Efficiency Driver

Reference:

Matthews, A (2025). My Top 5 Data Points for Business Management in Power BI. Available at: My Top 5 Data Points for Business Management in Power BI [Accessed: 10th May 2025].