Sales Dashboard: is it Time to Say Goodbye to Excel?

Are your quotes, sales, leads, and customers on Excel spreadsheets? For your sales team as well as for you, this software has been indispensable for decades. Yet, what do you derive from it, other than interesting data that lacks interactivity? By choosing a simpler and more attractive sales management tool, you will profoundly change behaviors in the field and your overall performance.

Excel for Sales Professionals: Effective… When You Truly Master It

Foundational software for dynamic databases, Excel is an apparently essential tool for businesses and their sales teams. Many thus look for a free Excel sales dashboard example with the aim of using an immediately functional tool.

Excel, a Fundamental but Cumbersome Tool

The foundation of reporting, and the origin of data analysis, Excel stands in the performance landscape as the quintessential calculation software. For sales professionals, as for all other professions and sectors, information processing and indicator selection started there. And, in many companies, it continues to be used, but certainly at only 50% of its capacity.

Excel is therefore far from being obsolete; on the contrary, it is an ultra-powerful tool, but perhaps too technical for most employees. Even more so for sales professionals who need clear data. Only data analysts can utilize its full potential. Thus, while it takes a week of Excel training to master the basics, it only takes a day to understand the main functions of a sales dashboard, or Business Intelligence in general.

Prefer a Simpler and more Motivating Sales Dashboard over Excel?

For sales professionals, the dashboard is not for decision-making but for room for improvement and objectives. Excel, in its basic use, offers raw data and analysis. But these are more easily used by decision-makers and data processing professionals for performance. Whereas, on the contrary, to increase the individual and overall performance of sales professionals, a dashboard must be a tool for motivation and understanding the immediate stakes. And consequently, a revenue accelerator.

Excel has adapted to all devices and is now collaborative, usable on the go. But can a busy sales professional find a benefit there that will readily challenge them?

What is a Sales Dashboard outside of Excel?

On the other hand, various cloud tools, such as ERPs, offer a different way to process data. But what do you do when all your historical data is on Excel spreadsheets?

A sales dashboard, or any other dashboard necessary for a company, can transition to a cloud solution. These are SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions designed to analyze data in real-time and capable of presenting relevant and attractive visualizations.

For sales professionals, it’s a new way to manage their daily performance and activity, both individually and as a team. The advantage of a dynamic, cloud-based sales dashboard is also the ability to automatically integrate its own data from Excel. As well as connecting the software to other services and a considerable number of key performance indicators (KPIs). The historical software and the work it enabled are then integrated into this new 360° solution.

Benefits of a SaaS Sales Dashboard

• Cloud-based, accessible on all devices and on the go
• Tailored to each sector
• Real-time data integration and processing
• Individual AND Team-based
• Clear performance visualization

A Cloud-Based Sales Dashboard, Accessible Everywhere

Today, from personal to professional life, everything revolves around the smartphone. So why not offer sales professionals an application, and consequently a personalized dashboard, to manage their performance?

A sales dashboard, accessible at any time, also takes into account all data, both from the sales professional and their team. They are automatically integrated based on quotes, sales, amounts, new customers, etc.

Analyzing a Sales Dashboard

The main advantage of a sales dashboard is its ability to analyze data in real-time. This data is then processed and presented graphically, so as to show the sales professional their performance and objectives. They are then in the position of a competitor, as they might be through a sports application. In each period, they challenge themselves individually or as a team against their goals to reach before a certain date.

The aesthetic aspect of a sales dashboard is fundamental. All processed data thus jumps out at you without needing further thought. Furthermore, the sales dashboard is also a way to know, through various indicators, your precise performance on a particular criterion. For example, this could be their ability to find new customers or to retain them.

A Dashboard Specific to its Sector

Another asset of a sales dashboard is that it is dedicated to a particular category of personnel. Generally speaking, it is important to choose a personalized solution for each company as a whole, but each department must have access to tailor-made software. Similarly, in a sales context, a dashboard must have an individual interface and another for the team. This encourages personal efforts to contribute to the collective effort.

Excel is obviously not a tool to be shelved. It is crucial for certain actions, both for calculation, data processing, or even project presentation. However, for sales professionals, other more interesting and visual tools can replace it. The management of sales activity then becomes all the more motivating.

With Incenteev, you unleash the potential of your sales professionals through a personalized dashboard on an application. It coaches their sales force and tracks them daily in their travels. And this, by maintaining a permanent link with their personal sales performance and that of their team.

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