How to Please Your Data Lover

1 Bring it all together.

When data lives in different spreadsheets, systems and applications, it‘s difficult for business leaders to see the big picture. They’re left having to cobble together a host of disparate reports to understand trends, causations and correlations in the data. Any omission—no matter how small—can leave them blind to information that would be critical to their next business decision.

The CEO of a prominent retail organization had cut a national product line that was posting subpar sales revenue. Shortly after halting production, however, the brand manager showed the CEO a map of sales by region, where they identified that the product was doing well in two states. The CEO immediately decided to cut a different line and reintroduced the better performing product—preserving up to half a million dollars in high-margin revenue. Despite the fortunate save, folks were left wondering how many half-million dollar mistakes had already passed unnoticed because they didn’t have access to the information they needed.

When you help business leaders see all their data in the right context, you create opportunities for them to eliminate unnecessary guesswork and improve the decision-making process.

“We track operations, finance and marketing in Domo. It would be very difficult to keep those three things in balance without being able to bring all those metrics into one location. Now everybody on the team is on the same page.”

—COO, SCRUM

2 Make it timely.

Business leaders are used to waiting for weekly, monthly and quarterly reports. But waiting for reports can have some dire implications for any organization.

Even when there aren’t fires to deal with, there are key metrics that business leaders should always stay on top of. For example, the CEO of Bohme was spending several hours every day just trying to monitor basic metrics on store performance for more than a dozen retail locations. Once she began getting metrics in real time, she was able to eliminate hours of manual reporting and make better decisions, faster. Getting access to real-time insights helped boost Bohme’s sales revenue by 15%, opening doors for additional expansion.

When business leaders wait for reports, they wind up missing out on opportunities that aren’t evident until after the reports are delivered, and the window of opportunity has closed.

“We’re in what we call ‘fast fashion.’ In 30 days, we will design, make, stock, and sell our merchandise. Having real-time data in Domo makes decisions around this process so much clearer and easier.”

—COO, BOHME

3 Deliver one version of the truth.

Everyone has a vested interest in what story the reports tell. As a result, reports often say more about the group that built them than the information they were meant to convey.

For example, the CMO may define leads as prospects that have engaged with the company and provided contact information. The sales executive, on the other hand, may define leads as anyone whom the sales team has qualified as a potential revenue opportunity. Their reports are therefore never in sync at weekly executive meetings, and both departments have to devote time and resources to account for the differences in the numbers.

But even agreed-upon reports are susceptible to incorrect information. According to the Wall Street Journal and a Harvard Economics study, 88% of all spreadsheets representing data are erroneous, thanks to simple human error. Everyone has fat-fingered a number or two, and when you compound those errors with multiple versions of a spreadsheet, confusion abounds and efficiency goes down in flames.

Business leaders need reports that draw data directly from the source and provide all teams with an agreed-upon “single version of the truth.” When leaders are on the same page, they’ll spend less time engaged in internal debate, and more time executing key objectives.

“Domo gets us the information we need faster than ever before. We don’t hesitate to base our decisions off the data in Domo because we know it’s accurate and it’s current.”

—CTO, PLATINUM IDS

4 Break down silos.

Getting timely, accurate data out of your own department is hard enough; getting what you need from other departments is even worse. Though departments are generally willing to share information, there often aren’t good processes in place to do so, and departmental silos develop.

But despite the inherent difficulty, sharing information across an organization is critical to enhancing its reach, impact and growth. For example, a marketing department needs to track more than just how many leads it pours into the sales funnel. For marketing to measure lead quality and determine where to allocate its budget, it needs information from the likes of sales, finance and operations to evaluate effectiveness:

• What lead types are converting to customers?
• What is the average cost per lead source?
• Which leads have the highest customer lifetime value (CLV)?
• Which clients are the least expensive to get up to speed?

Running a business is rarely a solo operation; when leaders across the organization are on the same page and share much-needed information, then efficiency and smarter business practices are always within reach. When data is tied up in individual departments, however, the entire organization risks losses that could otherwise be avoided.

“Domo allows you to join data together that would otherwise be too manual and non-functional to do, so it gives you a unique perspective into not just how your systems are working together, but how those systems are affected by each other.”

—DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT, FEDERATED MEDIA

5 Make it mobile.

Business leaders don’t just expect to have the ability to do business with a smartphone—they are partially paralyzed if they can’t. In order to do their jobs well, they need data on their own schedule. Whether it’s in a taxi ride to and from the airport or in the hall between meetings, they need the ability to tap into their top metrics wherever and whenever they want.

For example, the chief operating officer of Metro-West Appraisal uses his mobile business intelligence solution to stay connected to his most critical metrics, no matter where he is. He is able to tie together more than 60 territories and see the performance metrics he needs, all in an automated system on his mobile device. And since the data collection is automated, his BI and IT teams aren’t tied up in tedious tasks that take them away from performing deeper analyses of complex data sets.

Mobile data has evolved beyond a “nice-to-have” commodity and has become an operational necessity. BI and IT experts that deliver a mobile business intelligence platform are able to stay ahead of the curve and provide more value to their business leaders than ever before.

“I love that I can monitor our business updates in real-time on my mobile device. Since we’re a very fast-paced company, I need to be able to see what’s going on and react to things immediately.”

—COO, METRO-WEST APPRAISAL