Design Your Compass: Why Dashboards Must Reflect Strategy, Not Just Data

In a world overflowing with data, it's easy to mistake movement for progress. But when navigating complexity,

the direction of the compass matters more than the speed of travel.

In my last piece on the New Marketing Paradigm, I touched on why dashboards are critical to brand agility — but also why they must be as unique as the brands they serve. Today, we go deeper: Designing a dashboard isn’t about tracking more — it’s about tracking what matters most.

The Dashboard Dilemma

With consumer journeys now more fragmented, and automation providing an endless stream of metrics, many brands find themselves chasing dozens of KPIs — losing sight of their true strategic objectives.

Without senior leaders bearing in, Dashboards risk becoming data museums rather than navigation tools. The vision and KPIs flow from the top.

Without intentional design, brands hence end up speeding without steering — reacting to numbers rather than charting a course toward growth.

Let’s look at an illustration to of two hypothetical CPG brands — a Category Leader and a High-Momentum Challenger — and how their dashboards should differ. This has been done without brand positioning, that one key factor will then add additional nuances.

Whether you're leading a category or riding a new wave of momentum, your dashboard should mirror your strategy, not drown you in data.

At SmoothJazz Consulting, we work with brands to craft clarity-driven dashboard architectures that align insight with action — keeping your brand moving in the right direction, at the right speed.