Customer Story
SBI Key Stats
Industry: Professional Services
Department: Business Intelligence
Region: North America
Evolving
project-based consulting firm -> Digital analytic solutions firm
Internal
Alteryx user groups every 2 weeks
Growing
culture of analytics across the organization
Helping clients make data-informed decisions to accelerate revenue growth
Helping B2B organizations accelerate revenue growth by enabling sales and marketing teams to make more strategic business decisions, Sales Benchmark Index (SBI) is no stranger to digital transformation. As Gartner says, “Data and analytics are the key accelerant of digital transformation,” and Sales Benchmark Index realized early on that Analytic Process Automation (APA)™ was key to accelerating their own and their clients’ ability to deliver transformative business outcomes.
“For a lot of businesses, especially during this new era of work we find ourselves in, it’s all about adapting,” says Michael Garcia, business intelligence and operations architect at SBI. “Organizations have to find a way to change with the times, and it starts with digital evolution and data.” “My role at SBI is to use data and technology to support our internal processes, increase our team’s productivity, and architect solutions for ourselves and our clients. SBI fosters a culture of analytics – our executives are making decisions on fact-based information, while at the consultant level, internal user groups build and reinforce analytic proficiency. This mindset has resonated and will continue to grow as we pivot to a larger focus on technology.”
Automating internal processes and enabling data-driven decision-making
“Many of our clients are in software or TMT (Technology, Media, Telecom), and are $500M-plus companies,” Garcia says. “We also work extensively with clients in manufacturing, logistics, and life sciences verticals. SBI also has a dedicated private equity practice, and we help private equity firms and their portfolio companies execute on their value creation plan with more speed and a higher likelihood of success.
“The most common issue I see with our clients is their lack of ability to make sound business decisions using data. Our clients face many constraints like dynamic buyer preferences, inadequate market coverage, and just overall not knowing what to do with the data they have. Most forecasts and segmentation outputs used by our clients rely on legacy tools like Excel and SQL Server. As a result, they quickly lose relevance because of the lack of a repeatable process, a siloed stack, and changing market conditions.
“Internally, we faced our own issue of having constraints in our CRM, and we faced barriers that limited our ability to make confident, forward-looking decisions. Our processes were very manual, using Excel to keep track of hefty amounts of data, so we knew we needed a better way to go about it. I knew the simple solution was to start automating processes for not just ourselves, but for our clients as well.”
Using his expertise through his analytical background, Garcia came prepared with solutions when he joined SBI. “I had heard about Alteryx through some former coworkers, and I started using the Platform in 2017. What stood out to me was the user-interface, the drag-and-drop functionality, and the tools it provided. Since I have a data and analytics background, it made the learning curve of using a new platform much simpler, and I started using Alteryx at SBI on day one. I have not looked back since.
“We are using Alteryx to empower our dashboards and reports as a single source of truth to inform critical decision-making across the organization,” Garcia says. “With Alteryx, our models can respond to variable market conditions with agility, decreasing the time to production and time to insight. Our Tableau Server has also allowed us to democratize datasets across the organization so that everyone can get access to the data they need. It reinforces the self-service aspect of the Platform, and everyone in our organization has confidence that they can reference it and know that they’re getting the right information.”
Michael Garcia
Business Intelligence and Operations Architect
Sales Benchmark Index
An analytical solution to upskill teams across the business
Using their newfound skills and resources available to them, SBI found a way to work more efficiently both internally and externally for their clients. “I’ve automated 75% of my former workloads using Alteryx,” Garcia says. “Reports that were done manually are now fully automated, and my Tableau dashboards are being refreshed in real time. It’s freed up time for me to focus on tending to our clients’ needs.
“For our clients, we solve their largest go-to-market problems using Alteryx. Nothing is more satisfying than seeing a client’s eyes pop out of their head saying, ‘Wow, I can’t believe you did this!’ when I show them a new insight.
“I think Alteryx gives you learnings that are cascading,” Garcia says. “I can do all these cool things that help solve problems, and one thing leads to another. You look down the rabbit hole of your learning buckets and see all the really cool stuff that’s built right into the Platform.”
Nothing is more satisfying than seeing a client’s eyes pop out of their head saying, Wow, I can’t believe you did this!’ when I show them a new insight.
Michael Garcia, Business Intelligence & Operations Architect
Sales Benchmark Index
What’s Next?
Growing a community and culture of analytics
So what’s next? When describing the culture of analytics across the organization, Garcia says SBI is taking actionable steps to educate and spread resources across the business. “We hold an internal Alteryx user group every two weeks, and we’ll do a deep dive into a particular set of tools in the Platform each time,” Garcia says. “It has driven analytical proficiency and upskilling at SBI. We’ve also had people from Alteryx come in and speak so we can use them as a resource, and we incentivize our consultants who get Alteryx Core or Advanced certified with gift cards, which further drives user adoption.”
“The culture of analytics has changed dramatically; we’re evolving from a project-based consultancy to one that offers digital analytic solutions that can help our clients make better decisions across their sales organizations. I think we will continue to evolve and change over time as we continue to roll digital transformations like Alteryx out.
“I see analytics playing a larger role across the organization,” Garcia says. “We see the same data challenges across many of our clients, and these problems aren’t going away. We are in a position now to where we can solve these problems at scale. Alteryx will be a major component of our business for the long term. The analytic community within SBI will grow significantly because of platforms like Alteryx, Tableau, and others. It’s really helped us realize what’s possible.”
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