Technology

Data visualisation: A decision maker’s roadmap

As part of our new partnership with Reframe Capital, we’ve put together a series of articles with founder, Ben Lamping. We’re going to explore the topics which are top of mind (or should be) for investment managers right now.

Jamie Nascimento

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April 9, 2021

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min read

It takes several different inputs for an artist to create a masterpiece – the artist’s vision and skill, the materials (paint) and the platform they display it on (the canvas). However, a piece of art only achieves greatness once it’s presented to the world and people get to see it. Only then can the audience decide whether it redefines or reimagines their expectations.

It’s the same with data. If data isn’t accessible - visualised in a way that its audience can understand - it’s not useful. Data is only as powerful as the insights you can drive from the raw information. You need well-constructed data as an input before you can visualise it. But then how you visualise your data - and how you get the right data to the right people in order for them to digest it and make decisions - are key to how you benefit from data as an asset.

In our last article, we introduced the concept of data as the new oil. In this piece, we’re going to talk about data visualisation – why it matters and how it can be a differentiator for your organisation.

Why data visualisation matters

Companies are sitting on huge amounts of under-utilised data. If this data could be brought to the right people in the right way, it could generate significant value. After all, what’s the point in gathering a great lake full of data if you can’t make use of it?

Data visualisation is the key to leveraging data’s inherent value to your business. It’s an essential component of your data strategy, alongside sourcing, storage, cleaning, preparation, analysis and communication.

Visualisation lets you take raw data and present it in a way that allows for fast, accurate and effective decision-making. It gives a deeper understanding of your data, so you can:

Identify themes and trends
Capture and convert opportunities
Measure and improve performance
Plan and prepare
Move ahead with confidence and clear direction

How data visualisation helps you win today

Today, we see data visualisation playing an important role in a number of ways:

The move to advance beyond simple bookkeeping or basic accounting, utilise the data mountain behind your portfolio, or the historic performance of the fund/s to better manage existing or future investments. Merging the data and key metrics, to understand, isolate and exploit the true drivers of performance.
Regulatory pressures are driving changes in data management and analysis. Directly, the ability to clearly report on the audit trail behind every point of data, in a responsive and transparent manner, is becoming critical but imposes a commitment of time and resources, representing a business cost. Indirectly, more pressure, from clients or LPs for ad-hoc, specific reports to help understand performance or auditing puts added pressure on and requires time from, internal teams. Ensuring you have the tools to quickly and easily analyse and visualise the data based on highly customised requirements, releases time to focus on value-added activities.
ESG is not only becoming a further regulatory pressure but a key requirement from investors. The opportunity to use the vast and growing sources of data (both financial and non-financial) to find and capture long-term, sustainable value in the marketplace through real-time sector analysis, is a competitive advantage. We’ll cover more on ESG in a later article.

Further to these examples the ability to access visualisation tools wherever and whenever you work is now more critical than ever. As we move through a period when remote working becomes more the norm, the tools and technology which enables teams to continue driving insights from your data sources become critical over any device or browser. Ensuring your technology provider can achieve this type of connectivity will not be only useful but vital.

Can data visualisation be a differentiator?

Investment managers are realising data visualisation can offer a competitive edge.

There is significant demand from investors for greater portfolio transparency, measurable ESG impact assessments, and solutions that unlock revenue opportunities. All of these rely, to some extent, on data visualisation.

Firms including managers, administrators, data platforms and SaaS providers are investing heavily in data visualisation. The ability to respond to reporting requests in a manner that feels proprietary adds additional value. Therefore, if you can’t go elsewhere to get a specialised report in a specific manner, you’re adding incremental value to a service for clients.

To achieve this, you need tools that enable real-time access to your data in a manner that doesn’t restrict your ability to create bespoke queries. Then, you need to put these tools in the hands of the team.

Data visualisation for all

At LemonEdge, alongside other innovators, we believe we’re leading the democratisation of data science. Our data visualisation solution puts end-users in the driving seat, where they choose what data they see, how they see it and present it, so they can draw the correct conclusions from it. Every piece of data is accessible, even down to the audit trail of each data point.

Make no mistake; data science remains a science for good reason. You’ll never escape the need for expertise (with material risks of bias in analyses), but we give you the power to:

Process vast amounts of data quickly
Catalogue, clean and curate your data
Understand and interpret results consistently, with transparency of data sources

This power enables firms – and their leaders with pioneering attitudes – to get ahead in the race towards a digital future.