The following two charts show the business and technical benefits of enterprise dashboards as reported by Hurwitz and Associates. The most significant business benefits of dashboards (as reported by users) are Improved decision making, Faster time to market, Improved competitive advantage, Improved customer satisfaction, Improved productivity, and Improved profitability. The most significant technical advantages of enteprise dashboards are: Rapid problem detection, Respond to KPI changes faster, reduce manual and administrative work, Improve organizational alignment, Identify problems, Manage exceptions, Better visualization into remote operations, and Increase operational efficiency. Some of these seem like business benefits to me.

Nice listing of benefits for you to use in justifying your enterprise dashboard project. Good luck.

PS: If you find yourself part of an enterprise dashboard effort, you must study Enterprise Dashboards: Design and Best Practices for IT, the only book on actually implementing enterprise dashboards.

The Dashboard Spy Business Intelligence Dashboards Blog