What Surprise is Hiding in Your Data?
Will the Ghost of Data Past come to visit you?
It’s that time of year again where everyone hopes to find that perfect gift for someone special in their life, or get to be the happy recipient yourself, with something truly surprising and delightful!
Either way, the moment right before the gift opening has to be one of the most exciting and wonderful feelings in the world!
Amazingly, this is often how it feels when you get to see your data for the first time – integrated, clean and presented in a visual way – that brings on a sense of anticipation and wonder about what surprises may be in store!
I was talking recently with one of our most senior consultants, Jon Mitchell, who has been working with Qlik for over seven years. He has helped at least 100 different companies develop Qlik applications. Jon told me that most often, customers expect analytics will simply validate what they’ve always assumed, based on years of experience and static reporting. Whether they know it or not, customers design and build applications in hopes of validating known business results. Bah Humbug!
Those are the moments that Jon enjoys most because, with his Qlik experience, he brings new and different ideas on how to analyze the customer’s data, often uncovering insights the customer didn’t know existed – and sometimes have a hard time believing.
For example, Jon told me about a manufacturing client who had built a very traditional application to evaluate sales of their different product lines. One of the items being analyzed, that had a very specific purpose and marketed to a very specific customer segment, was selling particularly well in one region. Of course, the assumption was the sales rep must be doing a bang-up job! But, Jon uncovered a different viewpoint that the client had not thought to look at.
Jon started digging into the data a little differently, exploring WHO was buying the product. The insights he uncovered was the item was being purchased, in very large quantities, by a completely different customer segment for a completely different purpose. In fact, a purpose that even Jon’s client didn’t know it could be used for, even though they were the manufacturer!
The client’s first reaction was that either the data was bad, or that Jon had done something wrong in building the application. But, after a week of re-validation of the entire process, Jon confirmed that the analytics and insights were 100% correct. Once the client had done a bit more research and investigation, they found that by word of mouth, they had just gained a whole new opportunity for marketing to a different customer segment that otherwise would have never been realized.
So, what’s the point of my story? Sometimes, it helps to work with others who have the experience – and objectivity – in designing and developing analytical applications to help you find what’s hiding in your data. And maybe, just maybe, you too might come away surprised and delighted!
To learn more on how Qlik Consulting can help you find meaningful insights in your data, please visit qlik.com/consulting.