THE POWER OF DATA

In any organization, there are pockets of misinformation and misuse of data that can lead to business decisions based on feelings.  In a fast-growing start-up organization, this type of behavior can become the normal way the business is run.  Having been a part of this type of evolution, data must be consistent to the foundation and fuel discussions toward solutions in a positive manner.  There were large gaps in data and in time to process information.  Sales did not have access to consistent information; pipeline hygiene was meager; quota projections were poor, along with inconsistency between each sales representative’s use in the customer relationship management (CRM) database.  The leadership team did not have on-demand access to relevant data that efficiently measured the organization to determine goal achievement.  There was a large request to standardize our vernacular to have meaningful discussions, engage our sales representatives so that the focus be on selling, and that everyone remain customer-obsessed!In March of 2017, we were contracted to solve these issues, to get everyone speaking the same language and create something that would scale. 

 

There were many alternatives thought of to solve some of these complex problems: a manual rebuilding and refactoring of multiple Excel spreadsheets, investing in other software to manage the data, enforcing new processes, listening to the real concerns driving the growth, and getting creative!   At the core, the real question was, what could be implemented to drive a full solution that is easily repeatable, utilizes data, and would simplify the rhythm of business cycles. After gathering information from the vice president of sales and the leadership team on what was important, I decided a dashboard system would be best.  This was a new and creative way to look at data for the company.  It would involve taking some static data from quota/budgets, along with importing data from CRM and the professional services automation (PSA) software used.  There would be two workspaces: one for leadership and another for the sales operation’s view.  The workspaces would consist of live interactive data and have drill-down filtering capabilities.  A decision needed to be made on the tool used for these workspaces.  Power BI was the next logical choice, as all the data sets existed and it was a matter of coding this into a picture that made sense. The project took three months to complete. 

 

At the end of the project, it was determined that all teams had access to all the dashboards, as transparency became vital. Many of the business issues were solved by exposing data inaccuracies as well as utilizing the workspaces at the start of our meetings.  The representatives are consistent and understand that sales, operations, and finance utilize this data for reporting purposes where precision and accountability are key.  Now there is accuracy in close dates, ratios of won versus lost when measuring stage gates, and CRM hygiene improvement.  The power of the data is at their fingertips!  The teams now trust the figures, have the same vernacular, and can utilize this material to scale, grow, and evolve, all while using relative data.