Business Graphs and Charts: Importance, Uses, and Examples

Charts have a huge role to play in businesses, especially if you have to generate piles of data from your daily operations.

It gives business stakeholders a solid foundation that they can use to build up ideas and enhance the success of their respective brands.

Also, it’s a better format to use when you want to communicate with the members of your market audience, especially if you do not understand how to deliver technical concepts.

When communicating to your audience, it’s essential to take most of your time to ensure that your readers get to understand and remember your point.

The best way to make this happen is by using compelling charts which communicate data insights in a simple way that individuals can keep in mind for a long time.

The funny part is that there are many different types of charts available, and many business stakeholders find it difficult to choose the best chart type that suits them.

This blog post breaks down all the technical charts and graph types to help business owners make reliable choices when processing their data. Let’s get in!

Different charts are familiar to different people compared to others. This is why it’s essential to ensure that you have a basic understanding of different chart types and how to apply them in different cases to give better results depending on the data you are processing.

When you understand how to apply different chart types in different scenarios, you will get it easier to process your business data regardless of its level of complexity.

What is a Chart?

A chart is a final output that comes out after you have converted basic data into a visual format. On other occasions, charts are usually based on numeric data, while others are established on conceptual models.

Regardless of the basis on which your chart is built, the visual part of the chart is meant to make it easy for your target readers to understand the points you are articulating in the data.

Also, charts are incredible and easy to remember compared to any other format you can use to communicate essential data insights. Given that the data is presented using a visual approach, readers can easily grasp and remember the points in the long run.

In addition, graphs and charts can also motivate your readers’ behavior on other occasions.

It’s advisable to be extremely mindful when choosing different charts and graphs you intend to use when conveying critical information to your audience.

Choosing the wrong chart type is likely to affect your message delivery methodology affecting the context of the message you intended to deliver to your market audience.

Chart Vs. Graph

If you have ever processed data, you have heard about bar charts and graphs. This is not the only thing since there are also line graphs and line charts. But, what identifies the reason between a chart and a graph?

The one thing you need to understand and always remember is that the term chart a d graph are all used when referring to the visual presentation of data sets.

In most cases, graphs are used in a more mathematical-oriented environment. They are mainly plotted on two axes; the horizontal and the vertical. Graphs are mainly used when you want to press large sets of complex data or when you want to display long-term data trends. On the other hand, charts can also be numeric and also be used as graphs.

Let’s get back to our main area of interest and analyze different types of business graphs and charts.

Different charts and graphs are used in different scenarios depending on the needs of the company stakeholders. Below is a detailed discussion about different types of charts and graphs that you can use to process and analyze business data. Read on to find out more!

Column Chart

The column chart, also known as a bar chart, is one of the most common chart options many people use in their daily activities. The chart is easy to read and understand, and it does not have any technical elements.

A bar chart is the best option, especially when working with numeric or quantitative data. When you want to compare the difference in your business values, this is the best chart you can use to facilitate your activities.

It’s an awesome choice to use when you want to elaborate on the number of customers who have visited your business within a particular time frame, the revenues collected, and sales recorded, among other crucial elements.

In addition, this chart type may seem to be extremely versatile, and sometimes they look like vertical columns, thus introducing the name column chart.

On other occasions, they look like horizontal bars introducing the name bar graph. This is the best chart to use in a business when you want to display different comparisons simultaneously so that people can understand and get your desired point.

Also, it can showcase distribution across a wide range of data you can use to get her business insights.

Pie Chart

A pie chart is another incredible option to use when analyzing your business data. Before using a pie chart, it’s important to ensure that you have a basic understanding of how to use it and you understand the kind of data you can use it to process.

Even though they work better, pie charts are good when comparing different percentages of a whole.

Also, a pie chart is an awesome choice when you only have an average amount of data you want to process.

Besides, doughnut charts are also used to serve the same purpose as pie charts, but they are only useful when dealing with a limited amount of data. They are mainly applied when you have a few data sets you intend to compare.

You should avoid using a pie chart when you have multiple data slices since you will get inaccurate results.

Pictogram

A pictogram is an awesome chart that displays percentages in your data. The pictograph is good at showcasing the data ratio, making it a good choice compared to displaying percentages.

This is a good choice when you want to compare the number of visitors who entered your business within a given time frame. They are easy to read and understand since they do not incorporate any technical elements your readers may want to interpret.

When you have the business data, you want your readers to depict the difference between the percentages; you can use a pictogram to spell out the major differences. You don’t need to accompany your data with any interpretation since every element is spelled out clearly in a way you can easily understand.

Line Chart

When mentioning some of the common chart types, you cannot leave the line chart behind. However, the line chart is only applied under specific circumstances! It’s the best chart choice when you want to understand how the change occurring in one number is closely related to the changes that occur in the other.

The line chart is the best option when you want to communicate to your audience how numbers have changed within a particular duration in a business.

You can use the line chart to depict the revenue changes from one quarter to the next, depending on the performance of your business.

Conclusion

Businesses deal with numbers! The numbers ought to be presented in a way that the audience can read and understand. The best way to present business data is by using charts and graphs, which offers you a wide room to analyze, process, and present your data without the fear of contradiction.

By choosing the best chart type to use, you increase the accuracy of your data and make it easy to read and digestible. The goal is to ensure that you have collected accurate data values within different corners of your business and present them accordingly using any of the charts and graphs outlined in this article.