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Hello. This video introduces the power of converting numbers to images, an important concept for making use of back office data in improving business.

Numbers to images (0:32)
Back offices contain data that can improve business. A way to get business insights from this data, is to convert numbers to images.

When you hear The numbers are looking good this year, what looks good or bad is not one number, but the comparison of sets of numbers. Let’s look at some sets of numbers of sales data.

Here are nine numbers representing the sales of three products over three months. Can you see the relationship between them? Very difficult. Here is a graph of the same data.

Immediately, you can tell that the sale of one product goes down, while the sale of two products go up.

Now that you know the relationship between the sets of numbers, let’s revisit the data.

Still difficult, isn't it? But instantly seen when shown as a graph.

Why do you respond differently? Because numbers need to be read. Images are seen.

Numbers show a point. Images can show relationships.

Numbers provide Details that you want.

Images reveal Insights that you don't even know you want.

Discover business insights (2:01)
Let’s look at an example of how converting numbers to images reveals business insights.

Here, you have the data of product sales per customer. There are 1,062 entries. If the earlier 9 numbers were difficult to interpret, staring at 1000 numbers may not be the way to go either. How about converting the numbers into the bubble chart form?

With an image, you instantly see the whole picture.

Here we have the same data of product sales per customer. Blue indicates profit, and Orange is a loss. The larger the circle, the greater the sales. You have some small losses here and there, but the large orange circle on the top left, that is worth looking into. It is also beneficial to look into the large blue circle. Why? Because people have a tendency to focus on the negatives and neglect the positives. However, these positives can also provide important insights. Such insights on sales are not easy to get by just looking at numbers.

Technology provides us with data visualization tools to convert numbers to images. These tools allow us to see the relationships between sets of numbers, ask questions, and improve business insights.

If you are interested in this topic, and how HTM can help you harness the potential of data visualization to improve the success of your business, please contact us. Thank you for watching.