In 2020, the pandemic tested supply chains in a manner few have seen in our lifetimes, with businesses like Apple struggling to predict demand and keep factory lines moving. The weaknesses exposed by this crisis are not brand new, but they should be a wake-up call that current strategies are not sustainable. The limitations of modern supply chains were becoming apparent last year when companies struggled to react to new tariffs and restrictions caused by Brexit and the U.S.-China trade war.

Ask any analyst how they spend the majority of their work day and they’ll tell you: Performing remedial tasks that provide no analytics value. 92% of data workers report that their time is being siphoned away performing operational tasks outside of their roles. Data teams waste an inordinate amount of time maintaining the delicate data-to-dashboards pipelines they’ve created, leaving only 50% of their time to actually analyze data.

At Parameta Solutions, clients have come to expect our data, and our data products, to be robust and reliable. The way we really stand out in this specialist arena is through the quality and sophistication of our client services. I was delighted recently to share my experiences of how ThoughtSpot is supporting us in both of these aims during a webinar hosted by Cindi Howson during the Chief Data & Analytics Officers UK, 2021 event last February.

We’re all familiar with how Google Search revolutionized information processing for consumers. The ingenious combination of AI with a new way to organize content on the web created a user-friendly experience that forever changed how the world finds relevant information on the internet.

Speed and agility are vital in today’s dynamic economy. But moving fast in the dark is dangerous. Decision makers need the insights and guidance they can only get from reliable data. But despite massive efforts from their internal BI teams, getting that data when and how they need it has been problematic.

For more than 20 years, dashboards served as a foundational element of business intelligence, helping leaders visualize and share valuable data across their organization. At inception, dashboards were the perfect vehicle for delivering key report KPIs without data workers needing a background in coding or IT. But much has changed over the last two decades, including the appetite and needs of your business users.

In a telecoms industry differentiated mainly by service and threatened by churn, gaining access to timely customer data initially drove internal demand for analytics and BI (ABI) reporting. When demand grew beyond customer service, our IT team really struggled to keep up. This set us off on a journey to find ways to help our colleagues to find insights and the answers to their questions themselves.

When dealing with payments, speed is king. Technology is increasing the speed at which innovation happens, and nowhere is that more apparent than how everyday commerce is transacted. Credit cards are now built with tap-to-pay capabilities, if you still even have a physical credit card. Phones have become the new credit card, with data from transactions and mobile banking adding to the overwhelming amount of data that can be collected.

Last year, Harvard Business Review and ThoughtSpot published a groundbreaking survey on the business benefits of empowering frontline workers with data. Revenues are higher, operations more efficient, customer service better, and employees happier. And yet, few organizations deploy BI this way, historically held back by the technology, conflicting priorities, and mindset.