# Visualising Business Data: A Survey
## 3 Business Visualisation Articles
### Business Intelligence (BI)
#### 3.1.1 Internal Intelligence (II)
The Recipient perspective highlights the target group recipient, i.e., individual worker, team leader, senior management, workgroup etc. 4. The Visualisation type perspective examines the type of visual design suitable for the above context. i.e., sketches, diagrams, maps, images, interactive visualisations, stories. Previously, [PERSON] and [PERSON] introduced a strategy map for visualising causal relationships in strategic scenarios [121]. [PERSON] described graphical representations of data in a business context to improve performance [122]. **Secondary Data as A Priori Database (II):** The literature in this section studies pre-existing data for internal intelligence visualisation. The first paper describes some visual designs to inform a company's internal decision making after the original data is collected. [PERSON] presented six case study examples of info-vis software used in a business context [47]. These real-world examples are among the first recorded utilisations of information visualisation software used in the day-to-day management of the business. In this article, case studies focus on 3D visualisations of pre-existing business data ranging from financial information to management support. 1. _Fixed Income Management:_ In this case study, a dataset of financial portfolios is depicted using 3D line graphs. Emphasis is placed on the 3D nature of the visual design as it enables thousands of data points to be plotted compared to a smaller number in 2D. The more holistic view enables investors to quickly see the state of their portfolio or compare multiple 2D visual designs. 2. _Derivatives Risk Management:_ The software conveys the risk involved in options trading. A virtual environment contains multiple visual representations including a virtual screen showing the yield curve, a surface plot mapping the current profit and loss, and a grid map that shows the relative profit and loss. Users can interact by adjusting the extraneous variables such as interest rates to change the forecast visual designs. 3. _Management Decision Support:_ A geospatial map is used to display the locations of a chain of businesses and then 3D bar charts are overlaid on top to show the metric values used to analyse the businesses. This enables managers to evaluate and balance multiple business locations. 4. _Credit Scoring:_ This design uses a geospatial map to display credit scores in the United States. The software enables the market risk of permitting loans to be analysed. 5. _Retail Sales Analysis:_ Again using geospatial maps, this enables the user to compare the retail value of stores across the U.S. both individually or aggregately in each state. Three-dimensional bar charts or raised map tiles are used to show the sales from each sector or store. 6. _Management Reporting:_ This managerial software uses a virtual environment and 3D bar charts to show the portfolios of a business. The portfolios are grouped into asset classes and represent the main axis of data. A virtual screen shows 60 scenarios that would affect the portfolios and users can select each to see the effect. Another virtual screen shows the currency conversion rates which change with the scenario. [PERSON] et al. proposed an algorithmic modification to the traditional treemap to enable a better understanding of internal business data to mimic (or resemble) standard business graphs such as pie charts, bar charts, and histograms [48]. Specifically, the potential layouts of the treemap nodes are explored to maximise the coherence of the result. The data originate from a pre-existing database. See Figure 4.  
The first proposed mixed treemap takes the structured layout of the slice and dice algorithm and combines it with the square readability of the squarified treemaps algorithm. This way, the higher level nodes remain ordered, but the lower level nodes become squarified. The matrix modification enables data comparison of different sizes by subdividing the rectangle into a grid.