Meet Your Challenges Head-On with a Solid Data Analytics Strategy

Slalom and Google Cloud can help you unlock vital insights with a modern business intelligence approach

In the first installment of this three-part series, we looked at ways to reduce costs when it comes to your investment in cloud technology. But even when done intelligently — so as not to limit your ability to innovate and grow — cost reduction is just one part of the formula for delivering a strong ROI in times of turbulence.

Focusing on the aspects of your business that make you successful — like giving your customers, constituents, or other stakeholders great products and services and keeping them loyal — is an equally important priority. This is not an easy thing to accomplish in the best of times, but if you put effort into getting this right now, then your return on that effort will continue to increase as economies and markets recover.

Better data management is the answer — even to questions you didn’t know you had

The importance of data to your organization can’t be overstated, especially when it comes to your customers. Determining how and where you interact with them, what products and services to deliver, when they’re going to need something that only you can provide — predicting customer needs and demands and recognizing trends in their behavior all comes down to the data, and many organizations struggle with this. In fact, as noted in a recent TechTarget article:

“Until organizations can successfully leverage more of their data, they are leaving literally millions of dollars’ worth of incremental business value on the table — not to mention opportunities to strengthen their relationships with customers, heighten brand recognition and achieve other tangible and intangible business benefits.”

Google Cloud technology can help you avoid such a scenario. Google makes it easy to tap into its vast estate of user search data to help you monitor trends, even pinpointing them to specific geographic regions. With Google Trends, you can search days’, weeks’, months’, or even years’ worth of data on any search term.

So, for example, if you wanted to know the best time of year for promoting a specific product line, Trends data can show you when there are spikes in searches for those or similar products. Or if you’re planning on introducing a new product to market and want to determine where you should do so to maximize uptake and generate the most interest, you can focus your searches on specific regions.

This kind of insight can be valuable in many different ways. It can help you:

• Recognize the difference between random spikes and lasting trends
• Plan your promotions to coincide with times when interest is at its peak
• Discover new opportunities to reach a larger customer base
• Drive local efforts with regional- and city-focused data
• Achieve more targeted content marketing
• Keep informed of the competition’s activities
• And so much more …

“Businesses that rely on data management tools to make decisions are 58% more likely to beat their revenue goals than non-data driven companies … Data savvy businesses are 162% more likely to have significantly surpassed their revenue goals when compared to their ‘laggard’ counterparts.” — CIO DIVE, May 2020

To make this information even more valuable, Google has made Trends data available within its cloud data warehouse, BigQuery. This means that all of your data from across your organization, including your customer relationship management (CRM), advertising, point of sale, call center, and other customer-focused systems can be brought together with Trends insights to give you an incredibly comprehensive picture of your customers.

And with Google’s business intelligence tools, such as Looker and Looker Studio, you can create easy-to-consume visualizations of the data to drive even greater understanding of the issues and topics that impact your business and inform your actions. What’s more, even if you’re operating on another cloud platform — such as AWS or Microsoft Azure — Looker can access data on any cloud and is compatible with more than 50 unique database dialects. It can also run on public and private clouds, on-premises and off-premises, which means you only need this one tool to tap into the full range of data insights across your entire organization.

Slalom’s differentiated approach to promoting a data-driven culture

Slalom can help with modernizing your analytics and business intelligence (BI) practice with Looker as a foundation for all your data needs. If you’re just getting started with your data initiative, we’ve got some useful resources and methodologies that can help you better understand what it takes to be a data-driven organization. We also offer a variety of workshops and engagement options, including maturity assessments, identification of quick wins, best practices sharing, and user training. All of this is delivered by Slalom with a focus on supporting your people through any changes that will be needed to get to your desired end state.

As vital as technology is to your data strategy, your people play just as crucial a role. As noted by the Harvard Business Review, “cultural change is the most critical business imperative. It’s an understandable problem: to a degree that is perpetually underestimated, becoming data-driven is about the ability of people and organizations to adapt to change.” The article goes on to state that “91.9% of executives cite cultural obstacles as the greatest barrier to becoming data driven.” This is why working with a partner like Slalom is just as important as finding the right technology match for your organization’s needs.

At Slalom, when we work with our clients on data solutions, we promote a balance of accessibility and proper governance. Not only should your organization have the proper tools for tapping into the wealth of information you need to realize your goals, but your people should also be involved in the decisions that affect their work. Giving them the right tools is only the start; they also need to feel free to embrace experimentation and innovation by harnessing the data to generate insights that accelerate business outcomes.

In the third and final installment of this series, we’ll talk more about empowering your people to drive your business forward. You can also click here for the full story of how Slalom and Google Cloud can help you maximize your ROI to thrive beyond the bottom line. Or if you’re ready to start the conversation about modernizing your business intelligence and analytics practice, Slalom is here for you.

Slalom is a global consulting firm that helps people and organizations dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all. Learn more and reach out today.