“A good sketch is better than a long speech…” a quote often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. Companies are collecting, organising, storing, and analysing data from hundreds of sources, and the volume is increasing exponentially. But this data is only relevant if it can be used to drive outcomes and make timely business decisions. So it is essential to you can understand and evaluate the data quickly, and this is where data visualisation comes in.

To create value from data, you do need a big data strategy – right? Well, actually, probably not.  According to Gartner, the ‘all-encompassing data strategy’ fails around 60% of the time.  In fact, Gartner have even stopped publishing a Big Data ‘Hype Cycle’ (their measure of maturity and adoption of technologies).

As a word fractal is not frequently used in conversation. As a concept fractal is frequently present in our lives. Its presence is evident in nature. The concept of a fractal was established in large part by the work of Benoit Mandelbrot, a mathematician whose work covered a wide and diverse number of disciplines.  Perhaps the most notable example of how he established the concept of a fractal was his study of England’s coastlines.

Data visualization – or graphing – is one of the hottest buzzwords in FP&A today… right up there with “big data” and “predictive analytics”. It can certainly be an immensely powerful tool for helping your audience grasp your most important points.