Bringing Self-Service Analytics into Focus
“AnswerRocket has significantly reduced the data crunch time for IT and put the power in our end users’ hands.”
— Michelle Jagers, Chief Administrative Officer of Iconic Group
Iconic Group is an international digital solutions company that provides professional photography services at more than 10,000 events and 30,000 shoot dates each year. Specializing in education, endurance sport, and retail, Iconic Group photographers capture more than 53 million images annually.
The Challenge
With a marketing database containing millions of customers and thousands of events, Iconic Group understood the power their data held. However, they struggled to get insights in a timely fashion. Like many companies, Iconic Group’s primary means of accessing data was via standardized reporting.“It was only measuring what we felt was important 10 years ago,” said Jennifer Fitzgerald, Director of Consumer Marketing at Iconic Group. “We couldn’t change any of the parameters. It was difficult to get snapshots of what was going on.”
If Fitzgerald wanted more targeted analysis – such as comparing orders generated by events or evaluating email campaigns on a time-adjusted basis – her team would request custom data analysis. These requests created a backlog of work for their technical counterparts. Depending on their workload, it would take one or more days to get their answers. “It wasn’t very scalable,” said Fitzgerald.
Iconic Group’s technical team felt the pressure. The Database team, led by Bill Paul, used Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) to fulfill analytics requests. “We had more requests than we could possibly get to in a workday,” said Paul.
The Solution
Iconic Group brought in AnswerRocket. Our business intelligence and analytics tools gives business users the ability to self-service their own data inquiries. The interface is simple: Users ask natural language questions just as they would using a search engine. Answers are returned as data visualizations customized to the questions asked – bar graphs, line charts, scatter plot diagrams, heat maps, and more. Each visualization can be easily customized and shared with colleagues.Because their busiest time of year – college graduation season – was coming up, Iconic Group needed AnswerRocket up and running within four weeks. AnswerRocket met the deadline and combined three year’s worth of financial data with their Silverpop email campaign details.
“We can get insights 100 times faster than we could with Microsoft.”
– Bill Paul, Database Administrator at Iconic Group
The Results
Paul’s team is no longer tied up running routine reports such as revenue breakdowns – Fitzgerald’s group can do this analysis by themselves.“Marketing is able to see high-level views of their business, and can drill down by metric. That’s really impactful,” said Amy McCann, Senior Program Analyst at Iconic Group. “I love AnswerRocket’s ability to drill down on any number.”
Meanwhile, Paul’s team is focusing on more sophisticated analysis, expanding and refining the company’s data sets, and bringing additional departments onto AnswerRocket.
“AnswerRocket has significantly reduced the data crunch time for IT and put the power in our end users’ hands.”
— Michelle Jagers, Chief Administrative Officer of Iconic Group
Iconic Group is an international digital solutions company that provides professional photography services at more than 10,000 events and 30,000 shoot dates each year. Specializing in education, endurance sport, and retail, Iconic Group photographers capture more than 53 million images annually.
The Challenge
With a marketing database containing millions of customers and thousands of events, Iconic Group understood the power their data held. However, they struggled to get insights in a timely fashion. Like many companies, Iconic Group’s primary means of accessing data was via standardized reporting.“It was only measuring what we felt was important 10 years ago,” said Jennifer Fitzgerald, Director of Consumer Marketing at Iconic Group. “We couldn’t change any of the parameters. It was difficult to get snapshots of what was going on.”
If Fitzgerald wanted more targeted analysis – such as comparing orders generated by events or evaluating email campaigns on a time-adjusted basis – her team would request custom data analysis. These requests created a backlog of work for their technical counterparts. Depending on their workload, it would take one or more days to get their answers. “It wasn’t very scalable,” said Fitzgerald.
Iconic Group’s technical team felt the pressure. The Database team, led by Bill Paul, used Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) to fulfill analytics requests. “We had more requests than we could possibly get to in a workday,” said Paul.
The Solution
Iconic Group brought in AnswerRocket. Our business intelligence and analytics tools gives business users the ability to self-service their own data inquiries. The interface is simple: Users ask natural language questions just as they would using a search engine. Answers are returned as data visualizations customized to the questions asked – bar graphs, line charts, scatter plot diagrams, heat maps, and more. Each visualization can be easily customized and shared with colleagues.Because their busiest time of year – college graduation season – was coming up, Iconic Group needed AnswerRocket up and running within four weeks. AnswerRocket met the deadline and combined three year’s worth of financial data with their Silverpop email campaign details.
“We can get insights 100 times faster than we could with Microsoft.”
– Bill Paul, Database Administrator at Iconic Group
The Results
Paul’s team is no longer tied up running routine reports such as revenue breakdowns – Fitzgerald’s group can do this analysis by themselves.“Marketing is able to see high-level views of their business, and can drill down by metric. That’s really impactful,” said Amy McCann, Senior Program Analyst at Iconic Group. “I love AnswerRocket’s ability to drill down on any number.”
Meanwhile, Paul’s team is focusing on more sophisticated analysis, expanding and refining the company’s data sets, and bringing additional departments onto AnswerRocket.
“AnswerRocket has significantly reduced the data crunch time for IT and put the power in our end users’ hands.”
— Michelle Jagers, Chief Administrative Officer of Iconic Group
Iconic Group is an international digital solutions company that provides professional photography services at more than 10,000 events and 30,000 shoot dates each year. Specializing in education, endurance sport, and retail, Iconic Group photographers capture more than 53 million images annually.
The Challenge
With a marketing database containing millions of customers and thousands of events, Iconic Group understood the power their data held. However, they struggled to get insights in a timely fashion. Like many companies, Iconic Group’s primary means of accessing data was via standardized reporting.“It was only measuring what we felt was important 10 years ago,” said Jennifer Fitzgerald, Director of Consumer Marketing at Iconic Group. “We couldn’t change any of the parameters. It was difficult to get snapshots of what was going on.”
If Fitzgerald wanted more targeted analysis – such as comparing orders generated by events or evaluating email campaigns on a time-adjusted basis – her team would request custom data analysis. These requests created a backlog of work for their technical counterparts. Depending on their workload, it would take one or more days to get their answers. “It wasn’t very scalable,” said Fitzgerald.
Iconic Group’s technical team felt the pressure. The Database team, led by Bill Paul, used Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) to fulfill analytics requests. “We had more requests than we could possibly get to in a workday,” said Paul.
The Solution
Iconic Group brought in AnswerRocket. Our business intelligence and analytics tools gives business users the ability to self-service their own data inquiries. The interface is simple: Users ask natural language questions just as they would using a search engine. Answers are returned as data visualizations customized to the questions asked – bar graphs, line charts, scatter plot diagrams, heat maps, and more. Each visualization can be easily customized and shared with colleagues.Because their busiest time of year – college graduation season – was coming up, Iconic Group needed AnswerRocket up and running within four weeks. AnswerRocket met the deadline and combined three year’s worth of financial data with their Silverpop email campaign details.
“We can get insights 100 times faster than we could with Microsoft.”
– Bill Paul, Database Administrator at Iconic Group
The Results
Paul’s team is no longer tied up running routine reports such as revenue breakdowns – Fitzgerald’s group can do this analysis by themselves.“Marketing is able to see high-level views of their business, and can drill down by metric. That’s really impactful,” said Amy McCann, Senior Program Analyst at Iconic Group. “I love AnswerRocket’s ability to drill down on any number.”
Meanwhile, Paul’s team is focusing on more sophisticated analysis, expanding and refining the company’s data sets, and bringing additional departments onto AnswerRocket.
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