There is no shortage of available financial and operational data today, which are critical to making informed, timely business decisions. The challenge is how to access and view that data in a way that makes it both usable and useful, enabling you to quickly glean insights that are vital to running a successful business.
When a company with more than 60 different entities across the US needed a better view into its financial and operational data—both at a consolidated level and for each entity individually—the solution wasn’t so simple. The organization’s existing systems didn’t have the capability to consolidate data across all those entities and deliver it in a visual format that made the data usable. And without both a consolidated and per-entity view of information, business leaders couldn’t turn this wealth of data into actionable insights.
Overcoming Platform Limitations
The client recognized that a dashboard that consolidated its financial and operational data across every entity was the ideal solution for turning this data into a useful decision-making tool. The company tapped Scrubbed, its outsourced accounting and finance partner, to identify the best technology platform for the job.
Scrubbed evaluated PowerBI (which the client previously used for data reporting) and Tableau, but neither platform could easily consolidate the massive amount of data and various types of data that leaders across the company rely on for making strategic and operational decisions. The client also sought a platform that was easier to use than many traditional reporting solutions.
Based on its research, the Scrubbed team recommended the ClicData business intelligence platform. ClicData can connect data from more than 250 sources into a single data warehouse and turn it into interactive dashboards and visualizations that make data more usable and insightful.
Several factors tipped the scales toward ClicData, including its affordability, ease of access, and ease of use. The cloud-based platform doesn’t require individual users to install software or an application; instead, any employee with an Internet connection can be given secure access to the platform, based on the company’s controls and preferences. Depending on the choice of subscription, an organization also can choose to store its data on shared servers.
But while the ClicData platform was the ideal tool for providing ready access to key operational information, with the ability to consolidate a massive store of data, the company needed a data visualization expert to fully leverage the platform’s capabilities. Since Scrubbed has extensive experience developing data visualizations for companies across many industries and technology platforms, the client turned to the Scrubbed team again, this time to develop its data visualizations using ClicData.
Gaining an Enterprise-Wide View
Scrubbed used ClicData to consolidate sales, inventory, marketing, and financial data across the client’s 60+ entities and develop useful, impactful data visualizations designed to provide key insights at a glance. The platform’s ability to easily connect with disparate data sources proved a critical capability, providing a much-needed enterprise-wide view of data.
• To access the client’s inventory data, Scrubbed used ClicData to connect to the DEAR inventory management system. From identifying how many SKUs the company has on hand at any point, to determining if products are at risk of running out of stock, the connection to DEAR provides a single view into the client’s inventory position across the organization and makes inventory planning easier and more effective.
• To access the client’s sales data, Scrubbed used the platform to connect to the various sales technology solutions the organization relies on, including Salesforce and HubSpot.
• To access the client’s marketing data and develop robust marketing dashboards, Scrubbed used ClicData to connect to a wide range of platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Google Analytics.
• Scrubbed also used the business intelligence platform to develop financial planning and analysis dashboards that enable the client’s leadership to understand the organization’s financial health enterprise-wide and at the entity level.
Since taking on this endeavor Scrubbed has developed 20 data dashboards, along with dashboard templates, for use by staff members across the organization, all the way up to the board level. The Scrubbed team easily customized the dashboards and data visualizations with the client’s logo and other branding elements.
