Graydon Delivers Networked Analytics Marketing, Sales, Finance and HR Under One Umbrella A CASE STUDY

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1 Graydon Delivers Networked Analytics Marketing, Sales, Finance and HR Under One Umbrella A CASE STUDY

2 Overview Industry: Finance Graydon is an international business information provider covering financial information, credit reporting, marketing information, and credit risk management. The company was formed as a merger between the two leading credit information services providers in Belgium and the Netherlands, and has since expanded internationally. Graydon has been a trusted provider of credit, marketing, risk and debt collection insights for more than 125 years. When your company can trace its lineage back to 1862, it must deliver essential information products. When this information includes credit information and reporting, the quality of your data has to be second-to-none. Graydon provides business information to customers ranging from credit data to marketing data that can track customers throughout their lifecycles. Graydon s international credit report and business information network encompasses more than 100 million entities in over 190 countries worldwide, providing one of the most comprehensive networks in the industry. With this huge volume of information available, business leaders at Graydon are big believers in the power of data to improve performance. This ethos is embedded throughout the company. However, making use of data every day was a harder prospect, particularly when each team had their own reporting requirements and sources of data to consider. As a company, we provide extremely valuable information to clients, and we make use of that data for our own business, as well, explained Bart Redder, Group CRM and Intelligence Director at Graydon. However, some of the tools that were used to deliver this information to individuals within the business were not as flexible and easy to use as we would have liked. It was also difficult to link up different data sets within the company from departments, so creating reports was a time-intensive, manual process. This was something we wanted to change. & internal systems external 2 BIRST CASE STUDIES

3 Collaborating on use of data As a director in the Marketing team, Redder was discussing his problem and potential approaches to solving it when he learned of a similar initiative in the Finance department. Our colleagues wanted to make reporting easier for their needs, and the Marketing team wanted to get more insight into how campaigns delivered revenue and financial results too. This led to an initial conversation about how we could collaborate on use of data across the business, continued Redder. Following this, the Marketing and Finance teams decided to collaborate around implementing a new analytics and business intelligence platform for Graydon. The new implementation would have to deliver benefits across multiple levels for the business management team, for each department and for the individuals that worked within those departments. Redder s team had an existing visualization tool in place, but it did not meet the requirements for the extended project. Our previous tool was useful for individuals, but it did not support the types of data that we would want to use in this. It would also be difficult to integrate and make data available for everyone across the business to use. A new approach was required, said Redder. In Marketing, we wanted to see customer lifetime value and churn analytics alongside potential upsell and cross-sell opportunities. Without bringing in data from the Finance team, that just wouldn t be possible. Our business is built on providing information and insights to Graydon stakeholders, whether this is marketing insight for demand generation or business development insight based on financial data. Using Birst, we can generate actionable insight across a network of data sources. This data can be used by internal teams using self-service analytics and visualisations. Bart Redder, Group CRM and Intelligence Director of Graydon Graydon delivers Networked Analytics: Marketing, Sales, Finance, And HR Under One Umbrella 3

4 Benefits Of The New System: Delivers customer overview dashboard updated daily Provides self-service analytics to finance, sales, service, marketing and HR teams Key selection criteria: Ability to bring together data from multiple sources, including SAP, Oracle CRM On Demand, Google Analytics and other internal and external data sources Ability to create multiple visualization and analytic tools for different groups based on the same data sources Ease of use for self-service analytics within departments After going through a selection process, Redder and his team decided on Birst as the right platform to connect the company s data sources and run its analytics requirements. Birst was the right partner for us the company s technology fit our need to link data together in smarter ways, while its Cloud BI service could also be used for self-service, said Redder. Implementing self-service analytics and customer overviews Following the choice of Birst, Redder went through an implementation process that started with the strategy map. The strategy map is based on the company strategy and defines what needs to be delivered in order to meet the company goals. This was translated to a dashboard design that would demonstrate where each team involved would derive value from the implementations. Each team was then asked to deliver additional Key Performance Indicators that were missing until the design was complete and all the requirements could be met. By communicating out to the business right from the start, we could set out how we would deliver value back to them early in the process. This helped us build up greater levels of trust as we implemented the first dashboards, as well as ensuring that everyone felt included, explained Redder. This helped us set expectations on what the new dashboards would deliver. Enables new approaches to analytics across teams and for management, all using same data 4 BIRST CASE STUDIES

5 The first phase of the implementation involved creating connections between the different data sources that Graydon had in place, including the existing SAP and Oracle applications and the company s business information databases. Gathering this information, Redder and his team built a customer overview dashboard that the whole company could use for daily insight into performance. This dashboard was accomplished as part of the company s initial implementation and deployment sprint, which took six months. This dashboard provided everyone with a single source of insight into new business and sales for the company, which was something that we did not have before. From there, this data could be used for quick analysis and decision making across the business, using measures that were pre-defined, explained Redder. Getting this in place in such a short timeframe was a great accomplishment, especially as we were still making big changes in our SAP and CRM installations during the implementation. It also demonstrated how we were thinking ahead for the whole business around use of data for decisions. Along with the launch of the first phase and the customer dashboard for the whole company, each team began getting its own self-service analytics implementation, as well. The line of business teams responsible for finance and HR received their own Birst instances, enabling them to set up their analytics requirements and get the insight they required. At the same time, the Marketing team used data from these instances for its own analytics covering business performance and campaign successes. Marketing uses analytics to show how campaigns that we run are achieving against our target audiences. This requires information from our website and marketing applications, but also data from the Graydon financial systems that would show where these campaigns deliver actual revenue growth. Combining these sets of data together helps use demonstrate the value that we create, stated Redder. Our organisation has always been data-driven, but teams had islands of data that they had to work with manually. With Birst, we have networked our data sources together and delivered analytics into the hands of the teams that need this insight. This approach means that we can work with data as it is, rather than with reports that are static and not fit for purpose. Bart Redder, Group CRM and Intelligence Director of Graydon Graydon delivers Networked Analytics: Marketing, Sales, Finance, And HR Under One Umbrella 5

6 Why Birst: Extending analytics and predicting success Robust back-end for data ingestion and modeling Intuituve front-end for business users After getting the initial implementations completed for Marketing, HR and Finance, Redder was able to look at how analytics could be used in more detail across the Marketing team. Once we had Birst in place, we were able to look at how data was used across the company. This included looking at our organization and how it was put together, the culture around use of data, and how we measured the results over time. Looking ahead, we could make better decisions around how our data was governed and used, as well as checking the quality of that information. By looking at how we wanted to make use of data, we could then go from reactive uses of data around one-off ideas to a more proactive approach, explained Redder. In undertaking this approach, Redder looked at how use of data could be expanded across the business. To achieve this, the team built a framework for how analytics would be evolved, based on the strategy maps that were developed. The utilization of data has to be encouraged across the business over time. This involves making use of data business as normal over time, so that it can provide all of us, across the business, with insight into where there are market opportunities for the future, explained Redder. We can start by using ROI models, but push this further into predicting where the best opportunities for ROI will come in future, as well. Secure single-sign-on and multi-tenancy support one data pool for multiple audiences Analytic functionality supports distinct product tiers and packages For the management team at Graydon, Birst has had an impact on how often the business looks at data. Before Birst, management reports required dedicated time, monthly, to put together. Now, the team can call up up-to-date information and get an accurate picture of business performance. The business team now conducts this analysis weekly, while the team members involved can concentrate on delivering more strategic insight from the reports, rather than simply putting the data together. pg#5 6 BIRST CASE STUDIES

7 The future for data at Graydon Looking ahead, Redder and his team are planning how to extend the value that Birst delivers to the whole company through enabling more use of predictive analytics. This will involve collaboration across the company, as well as integrating Birst with SAS. Alongside this, Redder has planned to develop the company s culture around data governance and data quality. Data validation and governance should take place centrally, as this helps ensure that everyone is using accurate data in the first place. Birst helps us to achieve this control and consistency of data for everyone. However, we can also extend use of local data through Birst, as well. Individuals can upload their own spreadsheets or bring in external data for their reporting. This flexibility around use of data is essential to us as a business, and Birst delivers what we need, concluded Redder. Graydon delivers Networked Analytics: Marketing, Sales, Finance, And HR Under One Umbrella 7

8 About Birst Birst is the global leader in Cloud Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics for the Enterprise. Birst s Networked BI platform redefines the way BI is delivered and consumed, eliminating analytical silos to dramatically improve the speed, alignment and economics of BI. Built on top of Birst s next-generation, multi-tenant cloud architecture, Networked BI enables centralized and decentralized BI applications to be transparently connected via a shared analytical data fabric, delivering local execution with global governance.