What actually happens when companies commit to full data transparency? Does it bring better performance or just open the door to chaos? For years, the idea of “data transparency” has been thrown around as a best practice. But many teams still struggle to strike the right balance. Too little visibility leads to misalignment and siloed decision-making. Too much, and you risk overwhelming people—or exposing sensitive data without a plan. So, we set out to learn how businesses today are approaching this challenge in practice. To get the full picture, we surveyed over 70 companies to explore both sides of the equation, the breakthroughs and the blockers. We found real examples of how data transparency improved performance and where it hit a wall. If you’re figuring out how open your company should be with its data, these insights might help form your strategy. Why Is Data Transparency Important in Business Xero, ProfitWell, and Stripe Benchmarks Key Takeaways from Our Research & DBUG Experts Success Stories: How Transparency Around Business Performance Metrics Changed Teams’ Behavior, Outcomes, or Strategies The Biggest Barriers Preventing Greater Data Transparency in Organizations and How They Get Addressed Changes You Can Make to Improve Data Transparency Build a More Transparent, Data-Driven Organization with Databox Why Is Data Transparency Important in Business Data transparency is about making sure the right people can access the right data at the right time. Here are some of the main reasons why it’s so important: Faster decision-making: When teams have real-time access to the data they need, they can make decisions without waiting on approvals or chasing down reports. Stronger cross-team alignment: Transparency ensures everyone is working toward the same goals using the same metrics. It minimizes miscommunication and keeps departments from working in silos. Greater accountability: When performance data is visible to everyone, individuals and teams are more likely to take ownership of their results. It creates a culture where outcomes—not just activity—matter. Surfaces inefficiencies you wouldn’t catch otherwise: Transparency across systems and departments often reveals duplicated efforts, underused resources, or processes that aren’t contributing to outcomes. These insights are much harder to catch when data is siloed. Encourages bottom-up feedback that’s actually data-informed: When frontline employees and team leads have access to performance metrics, their feedback becomes more strategic. Xero, ProfitWell, and Stripe Benchmarks To provide more context around financial performance, we also pulled in data from the Xero, ProfitWell, and Stripe Benchmarks group. With this Benchmark Group, companies can track and compare key revenue and profitability metrics such as gross profit margin, total income, recurring revenue (MRR), revenue retention rate, and more. According to data provided by the group, the median gross profit margin was 71.1% (median, 55 contributors) in March 2025. For the top performing quartile, the gross profit margin in the same period was 97.2% (also median). If you want deeper insight into how your business performance stacks up financially, you can join our free Benchmark Group for Xero, ProfitWell, and Stripe. By connecting your accounts (100% anonymously), you’ll get instant access to real-time benchmarks for key financial metrics like gross profit margin, MRR, revenue retention, and more—at no cost. You can also create your own private Benchmark Group to compare results with select peers or partners in your space. And if financial benchmarks aren’t your only focus, you can check out other Benchmark Groups around sales, marketing, and operational performance to find the ones most relevant to your goals. Key Takeaways from Our Research & DBUG Experts Below, we’ll cover the main insights we extracted from our DBUG expert session and survey about how transparency is transforming the way companies operate. About Our Respondents Research Takeaways DBUG Insights About Our Respondents To understand how data transparency affects business performance, we surveyed a diverse group of companies that already practice business transparency, and how they think about how they track, share, and act on data. At the moment of the analysis, the survey had 73 respondents. Most of the surveyed companies have less than 50 employees, so the results are especially relevant for small and mid-sized teams where transparency can impact agility. 56.94% of the respondents reported having less than 5 million dollars of annual revenue, which means that many of these companies are still in early growth stages or scaling up. About a third of respondents are tech companies, and another third are marketing or advertising agencies—industries where data plays a key role in nearly every decision. Research Takeaways To better understand how companies practice and benefit from data transparency, we asked a range of questions covering everything from access levels to perceived impact. Shy of 60% of the surveyed companies explained the level of transparency in their organization’s key business metrics as “All employees have access to most or all key metrics”. Approximately 35% of respondents selected “most key metrics are shared, but only with select teams/departments.” This shows that full transparency is becoming more common, but many organizations still take a more selective, team-based approach to sharing metrics. We also looked at which types of performance metrics companies make visible across their organizations: Marketing metrics (e.g., website traffic, leads) are visible to all employees for 65.45% of the respondents. Sales metrics (e.g., pipeline, win rate, deal velocity) are visible to all employees for 63.64% of the respondents. Customer success metrics (e.g., NPS, gross retention, C-SAT) are visible to all employees for 63.64% of the respondents. Revenue metrics (e.g., ARR, net revenue retention, growth rate) are visible to all employees for 56.36% of the respondents. Operational or productivity metrics (e.g., capacity utilization, on-time delivery rate) are visible to all employees for 47.27% of the respondents. Financial metrics (e.g., P&L, Rule of 40, burn rate) are visible to all employees for 30.91% of the respondents. While marketing and sales data are often shared company-wide, fewer companies extend that same visibility to financial and operational performance. We also asked about data literacy across teams. Here’s how companies rated their employees’ ability to understand and analyze data: Beginner (Basic awareness of data concepts but may struggle with data interpretation and application.) – 24% Intermediate (Comfortable with common data analysis tools and techniques. They can perform standard data analysis tasks such as creating spreadsheets, using basic formulas, and generating standard reports.) – 32% Advanced (Highly proficient in data analysis and can independently interpret and utilize data to make informed decisions…) – 25% Expert (Masters in data analysis. They understand complex data structures, can manage large datasets, and perform sophisticated statistical analyses…) – 19% This spread highlights that while many companies are pushing for transparency, not all employees are equally equipped to act on the data. When we asked why companies choose to share or withhold performance data, here’s what they said: For 43.64% of the respondents, the main reason why they share (or withhold) performance data is “to build trust and alignment”. For 41.82%, the reason is “to encourage ownership and accountability.” The most common methods for sharing this data were: Most respondents typically share their performance data in Live Dashboards (e.g., Databox) – 63.64% and Excel / Spreadsheets – 52.73%. The most commonly used channels to share performance data within the organizations are Scheduled Meetings (in-person or virtual) – 76.36% and Instant Messaging Tools (e.g., Slack, Microsoft Teams) – 54.55%. When it comes to the frequency companies share their performance data within their organizations, 50.91% of them stated that it’s always accessible via live dashboards. Now, for the big question—does transparency actually improve performance? Well, 74.55% of the companies we surveyed agree that data transparency clearly improves performance. At the same time, 54.55% of the surveyed companies think that the benefits gained from data transparency far outweigh the potential risks. Vast majority of the respondents stated that data transparency positively impacted team alignment and collaboration, speed of decision-making, accountability and ownership, and employee engagement. DBUG Insights In March 2025, a group of professionals joined a live DBUG session to discuss the findings of this survey and share how data transparency plays out in their organizations. Below are a few key insights and real-world stories from the conversation. Caitlyn (Tam) Wells brought up a powerful tension many leaders face—how to embrace transparency without accidentally harming morale. “In our group, we talked a lot about how we feel like a lot of people are hesitant to be more transparent in their data across the organization out of a fear of what it might show or how their team might respond. So while there are a lot of pros where it can help, like driving motivation and excitement for people, there’s also the con of, if there is a season in a business where the metrics don’t look so hot, it can demoralize the team. Make sure that as you share these metrics, you have a plan in place for how to address it when the metrics don’t look good.” She also talked about how generational or industry-specific factors might build openness to transparency, noting that more traditional sectors still often operate from instinct and gut rather than data. Ollie Whitfield shared insights into the balance companies must strike between inspiring performance and avoiding information overload or fear. “The theme we struck on in the two halves of the chat were the benefits of sharing things and what things were most beneficial to share over the ones that were not, and then also the caveat of what is too much sharing and what detriments do they have. You can turn people off if you overshare because we’re all humans who have our own motivations. So, too much or the wrong things done in the wrong way could be more harmful than good.” He raised important questions—does oversharing cause fear? Does it create cultural pressure or stall personal growth plans? These are the tensions teams must work around. Rick Kranz also shared a story from his time running a manufacturing firm where he set up full data visibility across departments, with physical plasma screens showing team metrics and a shared reward system. “Everybody got a $50 bill, and what I found is that it had a huge positive impact on operations… if someone saw one department was falling behind, they would pitch in and say, how can we help? How do we get you? Because in operations, a lot of people can move from department to department.” Rick’s story shows how transparency, when tied to clear metrics and tangible incentives, can create a sense of shared purpose—even across departments with very different roles and pay grades. Success Stories: How Transparency Around Business Performance Metrics Changed Teams’ Behavior, Outcomes, or Strategies It’s one thing to believe in the value of transparency, but it’s another to see it change how teams think and work. Here’s how several companies experienced that firsthand: Teams Started Aligning Toward a Central Goal Increase in Engagement and a Better Sense of Ownership Smarter Sales and Marketing Resource Distribution Teams Started Solving the Right Problems Found a Way to Scale with Improved Product Offerings Teams Started Aligning Toward a Central Goal One of the most consistent benefits companies reported was stronger alignment across teams. When performance metrics become openly visible, it’s easier for individuals and departments to understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture. Instead of chasing separate priorities or working in silos, teams began rallying around shared goals. Rashida Goryawala of RevPartners shared how “at our company, transparency around our key metric helps align all teams towards a singular goal. Whether you’re sales, marketing, partner experience, finance, or delivery or even people operations, everyone knows what a priority metric is, and we all think of ways we can help achieve that which not only helps the leadership hit goals, but also creates a really good tea culture.” Mahak Vedi of Revology Consulting also talked about how “once we started sharing our monthly performance report across all departments, some of our employees started to become interested in other parts of the business and offering ideas and support.” Increase in Engagement and a Better Sense of Ownership When teams understand how their actions influence real business outcomes, they feel more invested in the results. Transparency creates a sense of purpose and changes the mindset from “just doing tasks” to actively contributing to growth. People start asking better questions, proactively solving problems, and holding themselves accountable—often without being asked. “When we started sharing detailed sales data with our artists, something fascinating happened—engagement shot up. Artists became much more proactive about promoting their work because they could see what types of pieces were selling and where. It shifted us from a passive gallery to an active collaboration platform. This transparency fostered a sense of ownership, and our community became more invested in both their individual success and the success of the platform. We saw a noticeable uptick in both sales volume and user satisfaction within a few months.” Samuel Charmetant CEO at ArtMajeur Want to get highlighted in our next report? Become a contributor now Smarter Sales and Marketing Resource Distribution When both marketing and sales can access and interpret the same metrics, it forces a more disciplined approach to resource allocation. Teams stop spreading themselves thin across too many channels or campaigns and instead double down on what moves the needle. Joe Ort of RevOps Inflection shared how they noticed that “pipeline targets were being achieved consistently, but we were missing our booking schools.” “To figure out the answer to why, we did a deep analysis across multiple teams to figure out what was going on. In the end, we figured out that a lot of our pipeline was coming from a specific segment. With that information, we were able to better allocate our sales and marketing resources to higher-converting segments.” PRO TIP: Want an easier way to monitor both your marketing and sales performance metrics in one place? You can download our free Marketing and Sales Deals Overview Dashboard to get an instant view of your most important TOFU and BOFU metrics. Teams Started Solving the Right Problems When teams don’t have access to meaningful data, they often end up solving the wrong problems—or worse, trying to fix symptoms instead of root causes. Transparency changes that. With a clear view of what’s actually happening, teams can connect the dots between effort and outcome, spot bottlenecks earlier, and prioritize the issues that matter most. Nick Fraunfelder of Sure Oak Marketing said that “one year ago, we started showing our top 10 KPIs in real time to our executive team on our weekly leadership call. We found that even though we were actively solving problems, we were solving the wrong problems. The data drove our decision-making to actually figure out the bottlenecks to growing our business. We set weekly and quarterly sprint goals and closely monitor our progress. In a single quarter, we grow top line 15% through our focus.” Found a Way to Scale with Improved Product Offerings By opening up access to metrics like feature adoption, churn patterns, or support ticket trends, product teams get clearer signals about where to focus. That move from anecdotal feedback to shared, cross-functional insight changes how teams approach development. It helps them prioritize what matters, cut what doesn’t, and build with more confidence because the data backs the direction. Rhys Uprichard of Revenue House explained how data transparency helped in this area: “We began Q1 this year with a teardown review of every action and decision that had been made from the business launch in October. From here, we were able to visualise and understand that, whilst profitable, what we were doing was not scalable. The data allowed us to identify which aspects of our product offering were profitable and scalable, and which were not, leading us to renew our business model and helping us define our product offering.” The Biggest Barriers Preventing Greater Data Transparency in Organizations and How They Get Addressed While many companies see the value in transparency, putting it into practice isn’t always easy. These were the most common barriers respondents faced and how they’re working to overcome them: Overwhelming the Team with Data and Oversharing Insufficient Resources to Automate and Maintain Data Quality Data Privacy and Access There’s Nuance to Numbers that Not All Employees Understand Different Teams Use Separate Tools that Don’t Always Integrate Well Overwhelming the Team with Data and Oversharing While transparency can drive performance, too much of it—shared the wrong way—can backfire. Several respondents brought up the risk of oversharing, like flooding teams with dashboards, metrics, and updates that lack context. Instead of helping teams, this often creates confusion, anxiety, or even apathy. Employees either tune out or feel pressured by metrics they don’t fully understand or control. “We don’t want to overwhelm the team or have things be a distraction. It’s a fine balance between sharing and over-sharing. What we focus on is what metrics are driving the company strategy – our overall KPIs and metrics- and then what metrics are relevant for you and your team. We want people to be able to see the impact of their work and how that ties to our larger company goals. If I make 30 calls this week, in 2 weeks, we’ll have 20 leads, and then in 4 weeks, we’ll have 8 new customers and x dollars of revenue – those kinds of data points are so powerful!” Kasey Bayne Fractional CMO at KB Consulting Want to get highlighted in our next report? Become a contributor now Insufficient Resources to Automate and Maintain Data Quality Some respondents noted that they simply don’t have the tools, integrations, or internal resources to keep data clean, consistent, and accessible across systems. Without automation or a central source of truth, teams struggle to trust the numbers, let alone act on them. And when data is outdated or incomplete, transparency becomes a liability instead of an asset. Here’s how Amanda Green of Stenn International described the challenge: “We didn’t have enough resources to build automation to support maintaining data quality. You can adapt forms, build Salesforce flows to enable this, but it requires dedicated bandwidth to build. Our Sales were most often entering incorrect data. This meant that sales ops were cleaning their inputs, which made ops less productive.” Klemen Hrovat of Sellestial also talked about how “regular data updates, which need to be done manually, are a challenge for us. We don’t have the resources to automate. To address that challenge, some data was not daily updated, but regularly, before we were sharing it with the whole team.” PRO TIP: You can use Databox to build custom reports that automatically pull in the latest data, metrics, and commentary—then schedule them to send via Slack or email. It’s the easiest way to keep leadership and stakeholders informed without manual work. Data Privacy and Access While teams want to share more, leaders often have to weigh transparency against compliance, security, and risk exposure. Not all metrics can (or should be) shared openly. You’ll need to know how to define who gets access to what and how to balance openness with protection. Especially in industries that handle sensitive data, this tension becomes a daily tradeoff. Hannah Lydford of Headley Media explained that “one of the biggest barriers is data privacy and access, particularly as we are a remote team. We use a combination of Lastpass, password-protected documents, 2FA, and VPNs when accessing and sharing sensitive data between teams.” There’s Nuance to Numbers that Not All Employees Understand Performance metrics can be easily misunderstood when taken out of context, especially by team members who aren’t trained in data interpretation or are new to the team. Numbers alone don’t tell the full story. Without the right framing, transparency can lead to misjudgment, misplaced blame, or flawed decision-making. That’s why some companies hesitate to share too much without also investing in data literacy. Joe Ort of RevOps Inflection shared his perspective on this issue: “There’s a lot of nuance to numbers that people don’t understand, especially if they’re new to an organization. Having context for why your numbers were higher or lower is something that you can’t really put into dashboards easily. Think of a whale deal that was closed, and then they churned the next year – your gross renewal rate will look terrible, but that was something that was planned for a known customer, so it’s not actually as bad as it seems.” Different Teams Use Separate Tools that Don’t Always Integrate Well One of the less visible—but very real—barriers to transparency is the tech stack itself. When different teams rely on separate tools that don’t integrate, it becomes difficult to create a shared view of performance. Instead of a single source of truth, you get fragmented reports, conflicting numbers, and misalignment across departments. Even teams that want to work from the same data often can’t—because the systems just don’t talk to each other. Kent Raju of Folderit said that “one of the biggest barriers could have been data silos between departments, where different teams use separate tools that don’t integrate well.” “To address this, we have, of course, implemented a centralized document management system with data dashboards that allows controlled access to key performance data so that everyone has visibility into relevant metrics while maintaining security.” How Databox Teams Helps Remove the Most Common Data Transparency Barriers Improving data transparency is rarely about just “sharing more.” It’s about creating the right structure, where every team can see the metrics that matter most, without drowning in noise or waiting on someone else to pull a report. That’s why we built Databox Teams. Teams are dedicated workspaces where departments, units, or cross-functional groups can track their own key metrics, goals, and reports—all in one place. Each team can build custom dashboards, automate reporting, and keep everyone aligned in real time. You can share live links, stream dashboards to an office TV, or present results with slide-style views and speaker notes. And transparency doesn’t stop at the team level. Teams can explore other spaces to see how the rest of the organization is performing, which encourages collaboration, surfaces new insights, and eliminates the silos that slow progress. Whether you’re trying to simplify access, avoid oversharing, or keep stakeholders in the loop automatically through Slack or email, Teams makes it easy to create the kind of data visibility that actually drives action. Try Databox Teams today and start building a more aligned, insight-driven organization—one team at a time. Changes You Can Make to Improve Data Transparency If you’re looking to improve data transparency across your team or organization, here are some of the most effective changes companies in our survey have suggested: Simplifying Data Analysis so Teams Can Better Understand the Numbers Create a Seamless Integration System that Consolidates All Data Sources Integrate AI-Driven Insights and Automated Alerts All Team Members Get Access to Real-Time Performance Data Dashboards Simplifying Data Analysis so Teams Can Better Understand the Numbers One of the clearest paths to better data transparency is making analysis simpler—not dumbing it down, but making it more accessible. Complex KPI dashboards, overly technical reports, or unclear KPIs often create a gap between the data and the people who need to use it. When teams don’t fully understand what the numbers mean or how their work affects them, they’re less likely to act on the insights. Kasey Bayne of KB Consulting explained how“the one improvement that would be a game-changer for my clients is around analysis – seeing the numbers is great, but being able to understand WHY these things are happening is the important part! What campaigns did we run, who did we hire, what product updates did we release – having that information and level of understanding lets the team see the real impact of their work, and helps us make better decisions, faster.” Create a Seamless Integration System that Consolidates All Data Sources When performance metrics are scattered across disconnected tools, it’s nearly impossible for teams to get a unified view of what’s happening. That’s why building a system that consolidates key data sources into one central place can make such a big difference. Whether through custom integrations or all-in-one platforms, this kind of consolidation cuts down on conflicting reports, manual data pulls, and the constant question of “which number is right?” Ken Voytell of SiteInnovator talked about how this change would solve some major issues: “If I could implement one change tomorrow to improve data transparency, it would be creating a seamless integration system that consolidates all data sources—Google Ads, Facebook, call tracking, CRM, and email campaigns—into one real-time dashboard. This would eliminate data silos, reduce manual reporting, and provide a clear, unified view of marketing performance. Clients could instantly see how their leads are generated, tracked, and converted, allowing for better decision-making and improved results.” PRO TIP: Databox connects with 100+ tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, and Salesforce, so you can unify your metrics and eliminate silos. No more switching between platforms or questioning which number is correct—just a single source of truth, always up to date. Integrate AI-Driven Insights and Automated Alerts Once the data is centralized and accessible, the next step is helping teams act on it faster and smarter. That’s where AI-driven insights and automated alerts come in. Instead of waiting for someone to manually analyze trends or notice issues, companies can use automation to surface key insights in real time. It can take the burden off busy team members and ensure that important signals don’t get lost in the noise. Kiran Joshua Joseph Kennedy of Mr Digital said that “if I could implement one change tomorrow to enhance data transparency, it would be the integration of AI-driven insights and automated alerts.” “While we already have real-time dashboards, incorporating AI-powered data analysis would allow us to identify trends, predict potential bottlenecks, and provide proactive recommendations. For example, AI could detect early performance dips in marketing campaigns, analyse contributing factors, and suggest optimisations—reducing the need for manual troubleshooting.” All Team Members Get Access to Real-Time Performance Data Dashboards Transparency doesn’t work if only a few people can see the data. You should try giving everyone access to real-time dashboards, regardless of role or department. When teams can track performance as it happens, they stay synced, spot issues early, and make faster, more confident decisions. It also removes the bottleneck of waiting for reports or filtering insights through leadership. “If I could change one thing at InboxArmy tomorrow to improve data transparency, I’d make sure every team member—whether they’re handling strategy, design, or automation—has real-time access to performance data. No delays, no report requests, and no approval chains. Just live dashboards showing our wins, our struggles, and spots needing quick shifts. I’ve watched transparency transform how my teams operate. When the data is right in front of them, they stop relying on assumptions and start making informed decisions in real time. I’ve had team members catch deliverability issues within hours, not days, simply because they had visibility. And when a client asks why a campaign is underperforming, no one’s scrambling—we already know, and we’re already fixing it. People think flooding teams with data causes chaos. But that only happens when it’s presented poorly. Clean, clear insights don’t just sharpen decisions—they create trust, ownership, and quick reactions. And in my industry, speed is everything.” Scott Cohen CEO at InboxArmy Want to get highlighted in our next report? Become a contributor now PRO TIP: With Databox, you can integrate your key data sources and build live dashboards that update automatically. Share them via a live link or stream them to a TV in your office for always-on visibility—so every team member stays in the loop without digging through spreadsheets or waiting for a report. Build a More Transparent, Data-Driven Organization with Databox We’ve seen just how important data transparency is when it comes to improving alignment, accountability, and performance. But knowing it’s important and actually making it happen across your organization are two very different things. Databox is here to help with the latter. We’ve taken everything we learned about effective data transparency and created Teams – our newest solution that gives each department their own digital space to track metrics that matter to them. With Teams, your marketing group can track campaign performance while operations monitor delivery times, all while seeing how their work connects to company-wide goals. (Here’s an example from our own team). Each team gets customizable dashboards that update in real-time and can be shared via live links or displayed on office TVs. No more waiting for weekly reports or wondering if you’re looking at outdated numbers. Everyone sees the same truth instantly. With Databox Dashboards, you can connect 100+ tools and bring all your performance data into one live, visual workspace—no spreadsheets, no manual updates, no hassle. Choose from dozens of pre-built templates or build your own dashboards to track the metrics that matter most. Then, with Benchmark Groups, you can compare your performance against industry standards across different departments. It’s a fast, free way to see where you lead, where you lag, and where to focus next. Try Databox free today and see how quickly shared insights can become shared success.