How a Data Strategy Eases Growing Pains – A Case Study

Captive Resources (CRI) is a thriving company dominating their market, but with business booming, they faced new challenges with their data – it was decentralized, there were too many manual processes in place, and ever-increasing amounts of data affected data quality. With Excel being their primary tool for reporting and analyses, they felt they had reached the limit of the tool’s capabilities. CRI’s issues certainly aren’t unique; in fact, in TDWI’s 2018 Report: What it Takes to be Data Driven, 88% of surveyed respondents said that one of the original analytics tools – spreadsheets – are used to drive decision-making at their companies.

Given the expected growth of their company (and the challenges that come along), CRI knew they needed a solid data and analytics strategy to maintain their competitive edge.

How CRI Tackled Their Data Problem: Start With an Assessment 

Before diving into technologies to wrangle data and present findings via visual dashboards, CRI brought in Analytics8 to help them think broader and create a foundation for analytics that would allow for continued growth and change.

Becoming Aware of Technology, People, and Processes

Like all companies, departments within CRI have different goals, focuses, and tools they use to make decisions. Analytics8 first conducted a strategic assessment so that CRI could take inventory of their current state of technology, businesses processes, and data sources and how employees across the company were utilizing data. Through this exercise, CRI’s true analytics needs became clearer, and strategizing a solution could begin.

Turning Knowledge into Strategy

While the assessment is completely necessary to build a data strategy, CRI was ready to start taking tangible steps to support their data and analytics goals. Analytics8 created a tailored analytics plan that detailed two things:

• A long-term roadmap with suggestions on data storage, BI and ETL tools, and staffing needs to support their ideal solution.
• A short-term implementation plan to immediately begin implementing the recommended solution.

Read more about the solution Analytics8 customized for CRI. 

Deliverables from Strategy Document Give CRI the Confidence to Address Growth Concerns

With a deliberate plan in hand, CRI now has the confidence to address growth concerns and implement an even more powerful and robust business intelligence solution. Efforts have started to consolidate and standardize data sources, and departments across the company are focused on standardizing and prioritizing their KPIs. CRI can continue to rely on their long-term plan keep them on the path of working more efficiently with their data and achieving success with analytics.