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Data Haystacks, Insight Needle and the Magnet of Visualization

Here’s a look at how a player slashed market forecasting dough to 1/10th of the original and rolled down report-making time by ten days per quarter

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Pratima Harigunani
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BANGALORE, INDIA: 100MB of data, need for a single version of truth and sharp forecasting needs. Sandip Saha, Director Market Intelligence, Bridgei2i shares some hands-on nuggets on how apt visualization can completely redefine analytics and the way it is distilled, consumed and absorbed.

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Tell us a bit about what you do?

Bridgei2i is an analytics solutions and platforms company and helps clients—including some Fortune 1000 companies—monetize value from data. We help customers derive meaningful insights hidden within fragmented data sources. It derives these key insights by using behavioral modelling, personalization and optimization techniques. The company also uses techniques such as embedding decision engines and driving analytics operationalization to drive impact.

What made you look for a visualization ingredient?

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One of the challenges that surfaces in data driven decisions is that infrastructure is not geared for driving them adequately and fast enough. Getting internal and external work seamlessly can be a challenge often, specially with old-age BI tools handled in siloes. We started looking at analytics to deliver in a user-centric format. The strategy team of a global technology company approached Bridgei2i to help improve its market forecasting processes. So far, this client organization had relied on a global team and that entailed multiple, static reports primarily delivered in Excel spreadsheets and .CSV files.

The result was that the insights were not region-specific, and each regional team developed its own forecasts as well, using local reports. We could sense the gaping need for a unified view of data across the organization and could feel the confusion around the true numbers.

Why Tableau?

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We came across Tableau and found it apt, specially for its simplicity. That’s how we designed dashboards keeping in mind stakeholder needs and left it to users for picking filters etc. The main aim was to simplify digesting of data. We have discovered how crucial is visualization when it comes to true analytics.

What did the shift cover?

The client had asked Bridge i2i to build a solution—using 100MB of data— that would deliver a single version of truth for its market share/size forecasting. This information was to be used by 900 executives working in roles such as strategy, sales planning, marketing strategy, product management from departments including Global Strategy, Marketing and regional country level Marketing. It was quite probable that these executives would have different questions of the data, so the solution had to be equipped for custom drill-downs at each level of the product/region/business unit.

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How has it worked so far?

Adoption in business is always a challenge and people are usually not comfortable changing at initial stages, when it comes to moving away from existing processes. Tableau, thankfully, allowed us to give variety – a sheet, a table, a ppt, a visual shot, anything. Bridgei2i has been successful in delivering business solutions in more than 12 projects using Tableau. When we chose Tableau for this project it was mainly due to the software’s ease of use and ability to customize reports on a regional/product level as required by different business users. That has worked.

Can you give some examples?

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For this project, Bridgei2i suggested creating a master version of the market forecast report that would deliver intuitive, flexible insight into the data. Executives would be able to drill into the data, answering their specific questions and filtering views by parameters such as region or product line.

What matters for good analytics at the end of the day – back-end or front-end, visualization as you call it?

Both have to develop. There are differences in maturity level but they cannot be mutually exclusive for long. Both buyer side and seller side have to develop simultaneously.

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How crucial is to be agnostic for true gain on analytics?

That matters a lot and most of our needs were served well by Tableau in that sense. Ease with diversity is the whole point about it. Only if it plays well with a variety of platforms, can a tool deliver well on analytics. Bridgei2i accesses data from the client’s Web Portal, from where it can be downloaded in an Excel format. The data sources include Google Analytics, MySQL, Flat files, MS Excel as well as MS Access. The reports are developed and maintained within the client firewall with VPN access and the authentication is completed using Active Directory.

Bridge i2i analyzes roughly 100-500M rows of data that using Tableau. Once the analysis is complete we upload the final report on SharePoint in the form of a Tableau Packaged Workbook. Client executive can then access required information using the Tableau Reader. It is an extremely user-friendly scenario, and works on more than 50 devices and across platforms such as iOS and Android.

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What’s the new scenario like now?

The client earlier spent approximately $300,000 per year on various analyst reports specific to each region. With the implementation in place, the investment in the entire market forecasting process has shrunk drastically, to 1/10th of the original amount. And the time taken to produce the market forecasting reports has been whittled down by ten days per quarter. Bridgei2i is now closely tracking utilization and working on fine-tuning content for its client. Increased accuracy and exceptional savings have happened. We were able to use Tableau’s visual analytics capabilities very well to deliver great market forecasting insights to our client. In short, from multiple versions of truth, the client has a single view.

Any big-level implications?

On a broader note, Bridgei2i’s solution using Tableau has been able to show a drastic improvement in the market share process for its client. Now they can get customized data on market size for each product level and geography; cut down report development time by ten days per quarter; chop expenditure on market forecasting and more.

Do you see the role of data scientists growing in this new landscape?

Requirements of data have certainly changed as more and more keep coming up so specific jobs that can cater to these needs will come up too. The key challenge is to look at the new needs with both data and business logic. Only then can data scientists make a difference.

When data moves from real-time to streaming state, what does that imply for the industry?

That may be happening but we have to see applicability, maturity of business and multiple use cases. We are looking at different companies and lifecycles but ultimately application matters. Cost-benefit analysis is still a strong parameter and value propositions should be well-aligned.

What’s your word on ‘analytics’ as a whole?

IT layer is still an important one in analytics but those processes, marts and tools should be layered well with analytics and business logic. Companies like Tableau will have to keep evolving as per market’s needs and desires for deeper calculations.

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