DataSelf

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We're in the uniforms industry, and we supply the culinary and food service on a global basis.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the chief operating officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with DataSelf?

We had to create a warehouse management system to track all trends to industry analysis. This primarily regarded our products across industries, across sectors within the industry, clients, inventory management, supply chain management, pricing, and customer service satisfaction. We're heavily involved in the data warehousing side of the business to track and run the whole operations of the company.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

They were extremely integral to the design of the system. I had the conceptual ideas of what I wanted to do based on my background, which is also IT. They were very knowledgeable in data warehousing, and the technology they used. In every situation, I designed and defined what we wanted. I met with their analyst to define how to implement it and spec what they did. They wrote the data that would be integral to the warehouse itself against which we developed our own reporting. They never developed any reporting, but they helped build the data warehouse repository based on the definition and the requirements that I provided to them. That has been consistent for the last five years.

We are using ProClarity at the moment. I understand that Microsoft is discontinuing that product. We're defining a proof of concept for Tableau to determine whether that becomes an adequate replacement for ProClarity. At some point during the next year to 18 months, we will have to replace our data warehouse. They’ve been a very good provider. Since Tableau can work and meets our requirements, I would definitely consider using that as the replacement for ProClarity.

Was ProClarity beneficial for your organization?

Absolutely. Extremely beneficial. Prior to my implementation of the data warehouse, all of the reporting was done with Crystal reports and printed reports. We have a data warehouse that allows us to record every transaction since 2005. We can do analysis on literally everything, and it's refreshed every night. We have up-to-date data in the data warehouse to make business decisions. It's been totally instrumental to the running of this business.

What was your process for selecting DataSelf?

We used a few different processes. I knew exactly what I needed in the way of business intelligence and a data warehouse product. I went back to some companies that I had used in the past. I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. I wanted something that integrated with our ELP system. DataSelf had a product in ProClarity that already did that. It was not a case of having to start from scratch. We had a product that could already integrate, and it was a case of enhancing and building on the platform. It made it a relatively simple choice.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

This has been a work in progress over five years. As far as I’m concerned, these projects never come to an end. If you put licenses aside, and just looked at services, it was probably more than $100,000 in five years. There were obviously licenses associated with it as well. Any reporting that we did internally was not included in that cost.

If you want to use a product like this, and you want to achieve what we're trying to achieve, literally every month, a new set of requirements are defined that we add to the data warehouse. That’s how you have to continue doing it; it's during an extended period of time.

When was the latest milestone completed for that work?

About a week ago. We think out of the box in terms of how we want to use it. We’ve put some major new initiatives in, in preparation for 2014, in how we want to track some initiatives that we're running through the company. Starting in the beginning of November of 2013, we defined those in anticipation of 2014. They completed it about a week ago. They would complete the work that went into the repository. We built all the reporting that we wanted surrounding the repository.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

That is difficult because it's very subjective in terms of what our business does and how it operates. I don’t know how to quantify it for an outsider. Much of the business' growth is probably around 15 percent per annum, on revenue growth. Much of that growth is indirectly attributable to the use of this tool. That’s not to suggest that if we didn’t use the tool, we wouldn’t grow. The tool contributed to 15 percent of the growth. When you look at the business decisions that are taken by virtue of using the tool and what we’ve developed using that tool, it has helped to sustain that growth. We’ve grown 15 percent to 20 percent year on year for the last five years. The tool has been a contributing factor. I don’t think I could put a metric around that.

How has DataSelf performed so far?

They have some very good technical people. I typically work with one person who really knows our system. I’ve always insured that I continue to work with that individual because she knows our system inside and out. She knows what my requirements are and how I think. It becomes a lot easier. It would have been a challenge if they had given me different analysts to work with during the course of this project. I would be re-educating everybody each time I spoke to them. From that perspective, they've performed very well.

Is there anything unique about DataSelf that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

I’ve worked with other companies in the business intelligence area. Some of them are a lot bigger than DataSelf, and you don’t get the personalization and the service. The product is very good. Their knowledge of the platform in which we operate is very good. That’s why I’m giving them the first shot when we look at Tableau as a replacement to ProClarity because they understand our business. They understand what my requirements are. If I were to go out and look at another company, that would be a whole re-education of the organization. I wouldn’t do that if we didn’t get good service from them. I’ve been very satisfied with the service they provided.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

I don’t know that there’s anything I would do differently. An area in which DataSelf probably could improve is that they don’t own the technology. They may be a distributor of the technology. There are times when I posted some questions to them, they had to go back and try to understand the product a little further to be able to provide a solution for me. That was in the past because this product, ProClarity, was purchased by Microsoft.

I’m really stretching for criticism. If there was any criticism, it would probably be in that area. In terms of their knowledge of data warehousing and overall knowledge. They were sharp.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

Implus is a global distributor of consumer packaged goods. We operate in the FDM channel with companies like Walmart and Walgreens. We also operate in sporting goods with Dick's Sporting Goods, Finish Line, and Sports Authority. We also operate in outdoor and consumer electronics. We operate in a number of different categories, but we mostly distribute sporting goods, hosiery, socks, and foot care products. We also have watches, pedometers, and accessory items like that.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the senior director of IT. My responsibility includes anything with electricity. We handle security in facilities, as well as the traditional IT roles of support, development, and EDI.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with DataSelf?

We originally went to DataSelf in 2006 or 2007. We did our first major acquisition then, and we acquired a company called YakTrax, a winter traction device firm. They brought to us for the first time a real eCommerce presence, which we never really had. Our traditional model has been to sell to retail. For them, it was important to sell online. We had to include an eCommerce solution into our business. We also needed to be able to track sales coming in through the different channels: We had to answer the following questions. Did it come in through eCommerce? Did it come in through a QVC offer? Did it come in through retail? We needed to identify the sales, and we didn’t have a good way to do that through the AP system. A trusted partner recommended using DataSelf. We got in touch with them, and they put in the original DataSelf solution, which we retained even when we went to MAS 500 in 2009. This year, they announced that they were moving the client from ProClarity to Tableau.

We updated our entire DataSelf BI platform and went all-in with the Tableau solution. That provides a much more modern solution for us. Our sales team wanted a mobile solution that didn’t require a log-in through Citrix or VPN. We wanted to get it on our iPads or emailed to us. Tableau has auto-email functionality, so you can build a report and subscribe to your own report. You can get an email every morning with each day's numbers. Our team likes that function and seeing a snapshot.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work?

We wanted to see sales and sales conversions, as well as inventory, inventory turns, and fill rates. At first, we didn’t have any kind of dashboarding, and our teams didn’t know what they wanted at first. Once they discovered the power of reporting any piece of information, the requests started flooding in.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

Between $20,000 to $75,000, depending on the number of users, which has increased.

When was the latest milestone completed for that work?

The project is finished for now. Occasionally, we'll get a new requirement, such as changing our fiscal from calendar to an odd-month structure. We had to initiate a smaller change on the project. If we want to add in new business practices, we'll bring in the high-end developers and make some adjustment. There were three separate projects. The last one was completed on July 31, 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

I still have a job. We didn’t do any ROIs. Our business has improved, growing about 20 percent every year, which is significant. We attribute that continued growth to our systems. I think DataSelf contributes to that.

Can you please assess Tableau as a platform?

If Tableau could fully replicate on their web client what they have on the desktop client, you can get some real power. The desktop client is expensive, and I don’t want to deploy 50 to 150 of those out to the company when I can deploy 50 to 150 of the Web clients. For me, it's hard to determine whether the user wants to see data or manipulate data. When you start manipulating data, you need the desktop client. In all the demos, they show you the Web, which is easy to use. If you need some heavy lifting with the data, you need the full-blown client. For me, that was the only real frustration, figuring out what my users needed. With ProClarity, they were used to a single platform; the downside was that there was no Web client. They were able to see one version.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

DataSelf is clearly a small shop, but I think they love the product. They take it very personally. If I have a problem, the founder and principal of the company will jump on my server on a Saturday morning and fix it remotely himself. He has taken care of SQL tables at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night. I remember watching the Olympics opening ceremony, and I had my computer up, and he was logged in, fixing something for us. Their value added is that they are flexible, and they care enough that they want to see the product succeed for you.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

I would have had tried to get them to come onsite a while ago to show them our processes. That way, they could be more partners in what we're trying to accomplish as a business, rather than doing everything remotely, through email. Sometimes, it's lost in the data, when they’re trying to make tables match up, they don’t really know what that means or what the user cares about.

The downside is, they’re a small company, and if they have a bad week with a lot of customers and things going on, you have to be very clear about how big your problem is so they can prioritize it. I don’t know how many customers they have, but if they have a lot of customers, I can see how that can be a problem.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We’ve been in business for more than 60 years, we are a commercial boiler and chiller company. We are primarily in the rental of mobile boilers – that’s one of the large parts of our business – as well as large steam projects. We’re the second- or third-largest mobile boiler company in the United States.

Our office location has about 85 employees, and we have offices in Louisville and Lexington, Ky., and Chattanooga, Tenn. For our service business, we service within the area: Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, primarily for regular boiler service. For rentals, we rent all over the world. We’ve rented in Canada, the Bahamas, South America. we have a couple of technicians in Russia right now. We do specialized builds of particular units, such as mobile boiler units. We built several of them for the Russian government, so we do business all over the place.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the IT systems director. It’s kind of a one-man shop. I primarily do application development. We run most of our business on in-house applications, other than our actual accounting package. Our CRM and mobile solutions are all developed in-house. We also have a data warehouse, which is where DataSelf comes in. I do all the development for that, through the ETL as far as setting up all the data structures that we need for our reporting.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for the work with DataSelf?

I’ve been here a little more than 16 years. When I got here, this department had a particular tool to track a report, whether it’s sales figures or service. The service department tracked information a certain way. We had disparate systems that people were using. We had a centralized accounting system that would just spit bills out. We didn’t have one version of the truth. Someone would say, here are our sales in this particular division of the business, such as boiler rental sales. We could end up with three different versions of that, depending on exactly what they considered a sale, and where they were pulling the data from. It was causing issues.

We wanted a solution where we could take all the different data sources that we had and pared them down. We got rid of some and said, you need to start using this. We still had legitimate data sources that we needed to mesh all together, so we could either cross-report or integrate the data all together and have one version of the truth. That’s where we started looking for a data warehouse, to where we could do that. At the time, they were called Data Habitat. They’ve rebranded. They were one of the few, or perhaps the only, one that had some out-of-the-box solutions that didn’t require a lot of end-user development to get up and running. They predefined the data structures and the data warehouse for our accounting package that we were using, which is MAS 90.

They geared toward the mid-market. We’re about a $30 million to $40 million company. Some of the other solutions were cost prohibitive at the time. We’ve been with them about 10 years. Back then, we were about a $12 million or $13 million company. Their price fit, and we could get up and running pretty quickly.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work? Do they do any reporting on the data warehouse?

The data warehouse is actually a sequel to 2008 data warehouse. DataSelf provides the ETL that goes over the top of it. The ETL is the software that we use that goes out to the different data sources. It pulls that data in, massages the data, denormalizes the data, and allows us to create the data warehouse tables, and the structure that fits how we want to report them.

Out of the box, they provide 300 or 400 different reports, Crystal reports, and they were also using ProClarity at the time as the business intelligence reporting tool. They provided several hundred predefined queries. I developed my own queries using ProClarity and pretty much developed my own Crystal reports. A lot of the out-of-the-box stuff didn’t fit exactly what we were looking for. It wasn’t DataSelf’s fault. We primarily used the job cost application in MAS 90, most people used the sales order. Most of the sales reporting was geared toward that different type of business.

We can write our own reports and queries using ProClarity or any other reporting tool that utilizes MDX.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

Initially, 10 years ago, the initial software license was around $10,000. We contacted some other data warehouse vendors, who told us it was around $100,000 to get going. For a smaller company, that wasn’t feasible. DataSelf geared toward our size company. I would say between all of it – professional services, fees, installation, and training – to get it all going, without buying any hardware, for about $20,000 or $25,000. I don’t know what their pricing is today. It was very reasonable, considering we couldn’t touch that. They were at least a quarter of the price of everyone else. Most of them were $250,000 and up.

When was the latest milestone completed for that work?

When it started out in the first two years, they were heavily involved. There was a lot of training. They would get on remotely, and we would work together through our particular business needs. I would contact them and tell them what our business need was. We have data that comes out of IBM Lotus Domino databases. We had them coming out of ADP payroll database. We have some very large spreadsheets that data was in. We had data in our accounting system. A lot of this data intermingled. We had some in our CRM that might pertain to a particular job we were doing. That job was also in the accounting system. I needed to be able to pull part of the job data from this data source. I’d need some of the job information from this data source to be able to report what management wanted.

DataSelf was very involved in that, and they’d walk me through it and tell me how to do it. For the first year or two, they were very involved. After that, I took it all on my own. Now, if I have any sort of problems or errors, they’re involved at that point.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

As a one-man shop, I do mostly all application development now. Before we had the data warehouse and DataSelf, I probably spent about 30 to 40 percent of my time trying to write reports. The reports pulled out of the live data were extremely slow. About 75 percent of our reporting is based on our job cost, because that’s where everything happens here. They could take 20 to 30 minutes to run, and then you might find out it’s not right, and so on.

Now, I probably spend less than 5 percent of my time writing reports. Reports that took a half hour to run, now run in 10 seconds. From a productivity standpoint, we were able to get the data warehouse built. I was able to build the reports that we needed that had the data that we needed, and the data was accurate. They run very quickly, and I didn’t have to change them much. 

Is there anything unique about them that makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

I haven’t had another data warehouse. Their business was geared toward companies our size in the mid-market. It seemed that 10 years ago, when we started looking, the data warehouse and ETL vendors really went after the big corporations. It was just cost prohibitive. At the time, they seemed to be about the only one in the market. Their software did what they said it would do. The support was good.

Looking back, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

Probably the only thing, which I understand they’ve worked on since then, the user interface of the ETL was a little bit difficult to use when we started. It wasn’t very intuitive. Once you learn how to do it, it was fine. Part of me thinking it wasn’t very intuitive was that I wasn’t a database administrator, so I really didn’t understand what a denormalized database compared to a normalized database meant 10 years ago. It was a different mode of thinking.

Once I got my brain wrapped around that, the software was a little easier to use. They had a major release about five or six years ago that instituted a lot of wizards. That helped it be more user friendly. Once you get the data warehouse built, you really don’t do much in the ETL. At that point, you’re using business intelligence tools for reporting.

In the beginning, the user interface portion of the software could have been a little bit smoother. It was certainly functional and for the price, I wasn’t complaining.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

My company has been around about 22 years. We are an add-on sales company. We concentrate on extended warranties, bedding add-ons such as mattress pads, sheets, comforters, and high-efficiency detergents for small, independent retailers across North America.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the IT manager. I’ve held that position for 12 years. Currently, I am also the general manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with DataSelf?

DataSelf came very easily to me. I am an IT professional, and am very hands-on. I was developing a lot of reports based on SQL reporting systems. The big problem is the Crystal reports because it’s so hard to audit, make the reports, and give them to the users to modify after the fact. I always struggle with that within an organization, and since I was a one-man show, I needed something that was turnkey. In this day and age, everybody is looking for not just a standard cross-tab report database, but also the visual side.

I took a data seminar led by DataSelf staff at one of the Sage North America conferences in 2007 or 2008. I liked what I saw, but I had to chat a little bit further because I have some unique situations in my organization. He made it very easy, and explained it very well. We actually turned the key on about six weeks after our initial talk. Since then, I don’t think we could live without it at this point. He makes everything look so seamless, and he concentrates on the products very well. Now, I’m excited because he’s moving into a new platform with Tableau. He is an original equipment manufacturer with Tableau. He is adding what he had at the backend to a very solid foundation.

DataSelf calls me back 25 minutes or less after I call. They’ve been very responsive. They have good people, and they understand accounting. They do SQL, and ETL is for the SQL server. He pulls everything to the analytic server in SQL, and he has various front ends. Prior to Tableau, I was using ProClarity and Exile. Exile works very nicely, such as the functions like tables. You connect it all up, and all the measures are there. All the holding formations are just drag and drop. You can navigate within Exile, and if you’re a pretty good Exile user, you can survive in that.

I didn’t mind ProClarity, but the platform was old, so I didn’t think it was worthwhile for me to invest in it. Once I acquired a product from him as a turnkey solution, I didn’t do too much to it. I gave it to users and told them to use it as it is. They probably got about 95 to 98 percent of their needs out of it. I have been waiting for Tableau. Now, I’m probably going to get into it early next year.

SOLUTION

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

I had a lot of customization added to it through the years. Since I had my SQL licenses, I think it was less than $10,000. They had a model for rent so we didn’t have to pay that fee upfront. I think I paid between $500 to $700 for five users. That includes all modules, GL, SO, PO, AP, and AR for four companies. I think the initial investment was around $2,000 because I needed some initial customizations that didn’t fit his out-of-the-box solution. I just do a monthly right now.

Their solutions concentrated on the Sage products, a bunch of CRMs, and Microsoft CRP. That was not hard for us to get used to because the terminology was almost the same as what we had on the RP system. Training the users was not very complicated at all, especially on ProClarity. It was very easy. There were 20 users on Exile and his own solution.

For adding a new matrix, KPIs, and measures. As long as I had the data, he figured out a way to do it. In my organization, data slicers have been a nightmare for me in Crystal reports and SQL reporting. They always want something different, and it was very hard to gauge it.

You don’t have to do any custom programming. Everything was there. The sheer amount of calculations that he built into it was a shock for the users is tremendous.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement?

We don’t really have stats. I just needed to tell them to pace themselves and concentrate on what they were looking for. They became their own investigator because once they learned it, it answered so many questions that we didn’t even know we had. The numbers were too visible.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

I have to say they will do whatever it takes. Between Joni Girardi [DataSelf’s CEO] and Laurie – I have worked with numerous people within their office. They have a very nice team. They are quick on their feet. Business intelligence is all about people’s interpretation, which sometimes becomes a very dangerous tool if it’s not done right.

I looked at a lot of solutions before I started with DataSelf. They specialize in the sectors, and they bring that specialty to the solution. It’s not like they sat in the basement for three months and built a solution, then came up and said, “We are done. If you need something else, we will look at it, but we don’t know how long it will take.” They really understand the database, and the flow of the software. They work with my resellers very well. I am consolidating four companies into two with multi-currency and history merging. DataSelf needs to come into the picture to do the new hookups and ETLs. They had no problem working through a weekend and accommodate that need, so Monday morning, I am rocking and rolling. I have no users that have any downtime for any reason.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

My last comment was that they needed to hurry up on Tableau. I think he is achieving that. We were both looking at that because I was desperate for a mobile solution that was robust. Tableau does HTML 5. It has the Web clients as well as the professional client for ordering. It’s a very robust system. He did it. He made the decision and knew what he was doing for his clients. He will address it in his seminars, and isn’t just saying that everyone should move to Tableau. He’s giving people three options: Exile, keep using ProClarity, or move to Tableau, and the reasons for each. Between the fact that I anticipate ending up with Tableau and what he has already done, I don’t think I have anything else to add.