Custom Self Serve Analytics Dashboards for Multiple Enterprise Clients
Project Description
Our clients’ requests ranged from optimizing existing dashboards to launching a company-wide analytics culture.
Our clients required company-wide performance improvements involving delivery timelines and budget achievements. In particular, efficiencies were needed regarding company-wide information dissemination and manual report generation.
After gathering information from stakeholders who were responsible for reporting and analytics, we discovered that the underlying issues were typical of the following:
- Reports were not available on time
- On-demand reporting (self-serve BI) was seldom an option
- Changing the report structure or making enhancements was too difficult or not possible
- ETL processes or aggregations failed without notifications to the end users
As a result, the broader user base was not always finding these reports very useful, or there was an impediment toward making insightful decisions.
Project Description
Our clients’ requests ranged from optimizing existing dashboards to launching a company-wide analytics culture.
Our clients required company-wide performance improvements involving delivery timelines and budget achievements. In particular, efficiencies were needed regarding company-wide information dissemination and manual report generation.
After gathering information from stakeholders who were responsible for reporting and analytics, we discovered that the underlying issues were typical of the following:
- Reports were not available on time
- On-demand reporting (self-serve BI) was seldom an option
- Changing the report structure or making enhancements was too difficult or not possible
- ETL processes or aggregations failed without notifications to the end users
As a result, the broader user base was not always finding these reports very useful, or there was an impediment toward making insightful decisions.
The Solution
Our Solution
- Alignment of vision and objectives – A series of workshops with key stakeholders were conducted to help streamline the business plan and increase its transparency across the organization.
- Internal and External Benchmark Research – To identify realistic long term and short term goals, benchmark analysis was conducted for key KPIs across the industry, competitors and internal landscapes.
- KPI funnel with the right balance of leading and lagging measures – Through an iterative process, strategic, engaging, and actionable leading and lagging KPIs were identified. The KPIs covered all cross-functional groups and increased transparency and accountability amongst organizational members.
- Selection of the right BI tool – We created a comprehensive BI tool selection criteria checklist and worked with internal reporting teams on proof-of-concept projects to try out different tools before making the final selection.
- Integration with FP&A – To engage stakeholders with analytics vision, specifically users in the realm of financial planning & analytics, we streamlined existing scorecards and monthly reports with the updated business plans and KPI funnel.
The Results
- Revived business plan with strategic KPIs – A centralized and accessible business plan for all departments with focused objectives and ownership clarity.
- Identification of realistic targets – Following an analysis of industry and competitor data and an internal profitability review, mid-term profitability and interim milestones were defined.
- Cross-functional KPI funnel – A centralized KPIs funnel with primary, secondary, and supporting measures was implemented across the organization.
- Delivery of automated dashboards – We provided leadership and expertise at each stage of the report automation process including vendor and BI tool selection, functional specification development, mock dashboards, and data automation project management.
- Streamlined processes – To make the adoption of analytics seamless, we helped integrate KPIs into regular business operations. Areas addressed included the annual budget revision process, forecasting, product costing review updates, continuous improvement project tools, and cadence and streamlining project management tools.
What We Did
- Full Stack Development
- Strategy
- Implementation Consulting