Service Provider Type: Business Process Outsourcing – Offshoring
Industry: Human Capital
Need
Business Process Outsourcing – Offshoring
PE firm sought offshore assistance with manual tasks to increase efficiency, lower costs and focus on higher order.
Challenge
Finding an offshore partner to free up resources
The PE firm sought an entity that could get them as close as possible to a turnkey finished product for several daily manual tasks performed by one of their human-capital focused portcos. Many of their work streams were labor-intensive, and the right offshoring partner would help them free up those resources to focus on higher order while lowering costs.
How BluWave Helped
The Business Builders’ Network
After the initial scoping call to understand the PE firm’s specific needs, we reached to a pair of exact-fit resources that we knew would be great matches for this project. The firm evaluated them both and engaged with a BluWave-grade service provider that has completed multiple successful projects for other PE firms.
Result
Lowered operation costs and freed up resources
We connected the private equity firm to a trusted, proven service provider that specializes in offshoring. They tapped into their network in high-growth emerging cities, allowing the firm to lower its operations costs and connect with tenured expertise in a less competitive environment. The manual processes were offshored allowing the PE firm to reinvest the time and money it saved its portco.
A tech stack is a set of software tools and programming languages that serves as the foundation of any technology project, including websites, desktop software and apps.
It’s also the backbone of a project and can determine its performance, scalability and maintenance in the long run. Selecting the right one can help developers streamline their work, speed up the development process and provide a better user experience.
The LAMP Stack is a widely used open-source web development stack that is suitable for creating dynamic websites. It comprises Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, where Linux is the operating system, Apache is the web server software, MySQL is the database management system and PHP is the programming language used to create dynamic web pages.
MEAN Stack is a comprehensive JavaScript framework that is widely used to create dynamic web applications. It comprises MongoDB, Express.js, Angular and Node.js. MongoDB serves as the NoSQL database management system, Express.js is a web application framework used with Node.js, Angular is the front-end JavaScript framework that enables the creation of dynamic web pages and Node.js provides the back-end JavaScript runtime environment.
Another JavaScript framework that is commonly used for creating web applications that support real-time updates is the MERN Stack. It comprises MongoDB, Express.js, React, and Node.js. MongoDB serves as the NoSQL database management system, Express.js is a web application framework used with Node.js, React is the front-end JavaScript library used for building user interfaces and Node.js provides the back-end JavaScript runtime environment.
Ruby on Rails is a well-known web development framework that utilizes the Ruby programming language. It is a preferred choice for startups because of its user-friendly interface and straightforwardness. Ruby on Rails follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern and emphasizes convention over configuration.
The .NET Stack is a Microsoft technology stack that includes tools such as C#, ASP.NET, and Microsoft SQL Server. It is widely used for creating enterprise-level web applications. C# is an object-oriented programming language that helps develop Windows desktop applications and ASP.NET is a web application framework used for creating dynamic web pages.
Django Stack is a Python web development framework that is widely used for creating scalable and secure web applications. Django follows the Model-View-Template (MVT) architectural pattern and incorporates an Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) layer that enables developers to interact with databases using Python code.
The iOS Stack is a comprehensive stack of tools that includes Xcode, Swift, and Objective-C and is widely used for creating iOS mobile applications. Xcode is an integrated development environment (IDE) used to develop iOS apps, Swift is a programming language developed by Apple specifically for iOS app development and Objective-C was previously used to develop iOS apps before Swift was introduced.
The Android Stack is another comprehensive stack of tools that includes Android Studio, Java, and Kotlin and is widely used for developing Android mobile applications. Android Studio is an IDE used to develop Android apps, Java is an object-oriented programming language that is used for building Android apps and Kotlin was introduced by Google as an alternative to Java for Android app development.
Choosing the right tech stack is a critical decision for private equity firms. The right PE technology stack should be a cohesive system that enables fund managers to source deals, manage relationships with limited partners and portfolio companies, and close more deals.
A firm with the right technology solutions in place can work smarter and faster, deliver higher-margin services and ultimately increase profitability. For private equity firms, the technology stack should be viewed as an investment and a way to stay ahead of the competition.
There are many factors that go into choosing the technology stack, but here are some of the more important ones:
Out-of-the-box solutions: These are pre-built software solutions that can be used to solve common problems. They can save time and money by reducing the need for custom development. Examples include WordPress, Shopify and Salesforce.
Integration with third-party solutions: This refers to the ability of a tech stack to work with other software solutions. It’s important to choose a tech stack that can easily integrate with other tools you may need in the future. Examples include Zapier, Segment and Twilio.
Developer availability: This refers to the availability of developers who are skilled in a particular tech stack. It’s important to choose a tech stack that has a large pool of developers available so that you can find the right talent for your project.
Documentation: This refers to the quality and quantity of documentation available for a particular tech stack. Good documentation can help developers get up to speed quickly and reduce the time needed for troubleshooting. Examples include React documentation and Django documentation.
Easy to test: This refers to how easy it is to test code written in a particular tech stack. A good tech stack should have testing tools built-in or have easy-to-use testing frameworks available. Examples include Jest for React and Pytest for Python.
If any of this sounds like unfamiliar territory (and even if it doesn’t), it may be a good reason to look for expert help.
There are experienced, proven service providers out there who know industry-specific tech stack requirements inside-out and can help your business make the best decisions every step of the way.
Fortunately, you don’t have to waste time searching for them. Hundreds of PE firms and private and public companies tap into the Business Builders’ Network for this exact reason.
Not only will you be connected in less than one business day, but we’ll only provide the exact-fit resources that are experienced in your particular industry.
Service Provider Type: Business Process Outsourcing Firm
Industry: Life Sciences & Pharmaceuticals
Need
Life Sciences & Pharmaceuticals List Building Expert
A PE-firm’s portcos were wasting precious time manually building lists by going from website to website and scraping LinkedIn. They needed an experienced third-party resource that could create a contact map with shared customers across multiple businesses.
Challenge
Grow Portco Contacts
Multiple portcos were using different systems to work with many of the same customers in the life sciences industry. The PE firm wanted to not only identify overlap and consolidate efforts, but expand their database faster.
How BluWave Helped
The Business Builders’ Network
After a Vice President at the PE firm emailed us, we immediately got on a call to scope the specific outsourcing need. Armed with a better understanding of the situation, we provided for the client multiple industry-specific BPO shops that specialize in list builds.
Result
Connected a best-fit service provider
The firm quickly identified the best fit among the short-list of options we presented, and engaged them to build and consolidate their contacts across multiple portcos.
The service provider did great work. We will be using them again if something comes up. Ten out of 10 quality and service.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software streamlines business processes by coordinating data flow across an organization. It provides a single source of truth and optimizes operations.
They are used to manage everyday business activities such as finance functions, compliance, risk management, retail, supply chain and HR.
As you might have gathered from the overview above, managing Enterprise Resource Planning data is no easy task.
That’s why so many PE firms seek help for their portcos in this area. Private and public companies often seek outside support, too.
Here are the primary hurdles we hear about on scoping calls where a client needs help extracting data from their ERP:
Lack of internal expertise: This is a common challenge when extracting data from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Outsourcing to a third-party service provider offers access to domain experts with the knowledge and skills to efficiently extract data.
Time constraints: Outsourcing offers a faster turnaround and allows companies to focus on core business functions rather than data extraction, which can be a time-consuming process.
Complexity: Extracting data can be complex, especially if the data is spread across different modules or systems. Experienced service providers who specialize in data extraction can provide a more efficient solution and ensure that the information is accurate and reliable.
Cost: Investing in the necessary hardware and software to extract data from an ERP system can be expensive. By outsourcing the project, companies only pay for the services they need.
Need for specialized tools: Companies may not have access to the necessary specialized tools and software. These same tools will be part of a third-party service provider’s day-to-day toolkit.
Data accuracy concerns: Extracting data from an ERP system requires a high level of accuracy to ensure that the data is reliable and can be used for reporting or analysis. If you leave this to chance, you may end up making important decisions based on faulty data.
Need for customized data extraction: Companies may require customized data extraction from their ERP system, which may not be possible with existing in-house resources. Outsourcing to a third-party provider can provide customized solutions that meet the specific needs of the company.
Compliance and regulatory requirements: The data extraction may be subject to specific regulations or industry standards. Companies may not have the in-house expertise to ensure that the process meets these standards, and can benefit from the provider’s knowledge of industry-specific regulations and standards. This helps minimize the risk of regulatory violations, legal penalties and reputation damage.
Scalability: As a company grows, the amount of data generated by an ERP system may increase, and the data extraction process can become more unwieldy. There may become a point when companies don’t have the resources to handle the volume of data generated by their ERP system. Third-party providers can offer scalable solutions that can handle larger data volumes and provide ongoing support as the company grows.
If you’re ready to extract data from your ERP system, we’re here to connect you with a niche-specific, expertly vetted service provider.
We know the resource you need for your specific situation before we ever jump on a scoping call, and we’ll introduce you to two or three best-fit solutions in less than one business day.
How has the current economic situation – i.e. the 2023 bank collapses – affected collaboration between operating partners, portfolio support and deal teams? What are private equity firms’ latest technology best practices around data & analytics, cybersecurity and AI?
These were the hot topics in the latest BluWave-hosted PE Operating Partners’ forum March 21.
Centralized data in business analytics involves consolidating information from across an organization into a single system for easier analysis.
“This aspect of business intelligence and analytics is important because it gives companies visibility into KPIs at a high level,” says Brandon John, BluWave’s Service Provider Relationship Manager.
The consolidation usually happens in something called a data warehouse.
Business intelligence practices like centralization are becoming more and more important to businesses, whether that mean private equity, portcos or private and public companies.
According to our most recent quarterly report, we saw “broad-scale adoption of data quality and visualization endeavors and emergent efforts in higher level analytics and AI.”
Let’s take a closer look at what data centralization can do for your business.
Centralized data provides a single source of truth so leadership can make faster, more accurate business decisions.
Early Detection of Issues
Centralized data allows businesses to identify problems sooner before they become bigger issues.
More Consistency
Different departments often have the same definitions and metrics for things like active users and sales. By centralizing data, you can eliminate confusion at the leadership level.
Holistic View of Customer Journey
Centralized data from marketing, sales and customer service systems provide a complete picture of the customer experience.
Advanced Capabilities
It is easier to analyze data and find insights when all of the relevant data is in one place. Businesses can more easily see correlations across different data sets.
Increased Efficiency
Employees don’t have to spend time aggregating data from different systems. Everything is available in a single source.
Improved Trust
There is confidence that the data and reports are accurate and consistent since there is only one version of the truth.
Digital transformation is no longer something only the biggest, wealthiest companies can afford.
Not only are these services within reach for businesses of all sizes – from enterprise organizations to lower middle market companies – but they’re also essential.
Learn about common improvement areas all businesses can implement to accelerate digital transformation efforts.
Business leaders, including operations partners at private equity firms, C-level executives and functional leads are evaluating the digital capabilities and infrastructure in their companies to identify areas for improvement
Simple improvements to workflows or procedures can significantly trim manual tasks and optimize human capital during economic uncertainty
“No-regret” moves such as the following can accelerate change in a targeted, cost-effective way:
Adopting cloud and SaaS solutions
Improving cybersecurity
Enhancing website capabilities with tools like chatbots
Automating order processing and inventory management
How do you identify top C-suite talent? And what’s the best way to improve culture and retention for existing employees?
These were among the most popular topics in the latest BluWave-hosted Human Capital forum March 9.
Megan Ryan Kanefsky of J.F. Lehman & Company, Kristin Brown Patrick of New State Capital Partners and Abby Wilson of Transom Capital Group joined our own Rena Frackt Zimmerman as panelists for the virtual event.
The panelists discussed the importance of creating scorecard assessments for all executive positions to test technical aptitude.
Incorporating objective criteria, such as personality assessments, can also be helpful. For example, when hiring a CFO, the process might involve screening for cultural fit, sending an assessment that models financial statements with errors and conducting behavioral interviews with key stakeholders.
To ensure success, it’s essential to communicate effectively with candidates and get alignment on what you’re looking for from the onset. Putting in the work upfront can help build a high-performing executive team that drives company growth and success.
Hiring deeper within the organization – beyond the C-suite – also came up. The panelists said that one important aspect of the hiring process is using data to evaluate talent.
Objective criteria like cognitive abilities and behavioral fit for the role can help companies focus on hiring for aptitude and growth potential rather than just credentials. Encouraging a mindset of thinking outside the box can also help identify junior talent with a strong aptitude to learn and grow.
While it may take longer to find smarter and better hires, these candidates are more likely to stay and contribute to the growth and success of the company.
Improving Retention and Culture
Creating a positive and engaging work culture – vital to retaining top talent – was the third and final topic the panelists discussed.
One way to encourage employee buy-in and create a sense of ownership is to offer profit interests to all employees, not just top executives. This can motivate team members as they feel invested in the success of the company. Leadership programs for middle managers and director-level employees can also have a significant impact on retention rates.
Regular standing events create a sense of loyalty to the organization, too. For example, weekly lunches or bi-weekly events can encourage collaboration and give different levels of the organization opportunities to interact. This can foster a sense of community and help create a more positive work environment.
Simple acts of recognition and gratitude can also go a long way toward building a more positive culture, the panelists said.
Pricing consultants help businesses maximize profits based on researching trends, competitors, customer behavior and more. The goal is to maintain high demand and revenue generation without sacrificing quality, loyalty or perception.
Setting the right price for a product or service is a key factor in maximizing profit margin. It can unlock substantial additional revenue when done correctly.
In fact, demand for pricing strategy resources continues to increase in this high-inflation economy. It’s often among the most-sought resources in the BluWave network.
If you want to hire a pricing expert, here’s what you should look for during your evaluation.
How consultants set prices depends on many factors, such as the type of product or service, market conditions, customer segments and business goals. That’s why it’s so important to hire someone who will take the time to intimately understand your organization and its competitors.
By choosing the “right price,” these consultants help maximize a business’s ROI by protecting profit margins while maximizing revenue and demand.
Pricing consultants may use a number of different high-level strategies: cost-plus pricing; value-based pricing; dynamic pricing; promotional pricing; penetration pricing; skimming pricing.
Pricing, however, is not a one-time exercise. They must be constantly assessed and adjusted based on performance. Consultants work closely with their clients to understand their objectives and constraints and develop a pricing strategy that supports them.
They help businesses choose the “right price” that aligns with the overall business strategy, marketing plan and sales goals to achieve maximum ROI.
When choosing a pricing consultant, finding someone who thoroughly researches the market before making recommendations is essential. Pricing consultants use various methods such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, experiments, data analysis, and more to gain customer and market insights. This establishes a solid foundation for an effective strategy.
In addition to customer and market insights, pricing consultants also consider production, distribution and other operational costs to develop a strategy that ensures profitability.
Pricing consultants also analyze competitors’ strategies to identify opportunities and potential threats. This analysis includes not only their product or service prices, but also their promotions, discounts and other tactics.
To measure price sensitivity, consultants may use techniques such as conjoint analysis or price elasticity testing. This helps them determine how price changes may affect customer demand. They also use digital tools such as web analytics, social listening and sentiment analysis to gain insights into customer behavior and preferences.
All this market research can help validate a new product or service, identify customer value drivers, measure price sensitivity, segment customers by willingness to pay, benchmark competitors’ prices and more.
After conducting market research and analyzing customer insights, pricing consultants typically use a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis to create a pricing strategy that meets their clients’ goals. This includes:
Segmenting customers: Based on their willingness to pay, customer segments are created to help determine the optimal pricing strategy. This involves identifying the different types of customers, their preferences and their willingness to pay for a particular product or service.
Identifying value drivers: Consultants work with their clients to identify the key value drivers for their products or services. This involves understanding what features or benefits are most important to customers and how they affect their willingness to pay.
Developing pricing structures: After identifying customer segments and value drivers, consultants develop pricing structures that align with their clients’ business goals. This may involve creating different pricing tiers or packages that offer different levels of benefits or features.
Conducting sensitivity analysis: For an optimal pricing strategy, consultants conduct sensitivity analysis to understand how changes in pricing may affect demand and revenue.
Developing measurement tools: Pricing consultants also develop measurement tools to monitor the performance of the pricing strategy over time. This includes setting up metrics and analytics to track sales, revenue, profit margins and customer satisfaction.
By using a combination of market research, quantitative analysis, and pricing strategies, pricing consultants help businesses maximize ROI and growth.
To better understand customer behavior and preferences, pricing consultants use a range of techniques to gather insights:
Key decision factors: One of the first steps in understanding a customer base is defining what motivates them. This involves identifying the main drivers of customer behavior, such as price, quality, brand reputation or convenience. Research techniques such as surveys, focus groups and data analysis can all be used to understand what influences purchasing decisions.
Willingness to pay: This concept helps businesses determine the optimal price point for their products or services. Essentially, willingness to pay is a measure of how much customers are willing to spend on a particular product or service based on factors such as perceived value, quality and market competition.
Preferences: Customer needs vary from market to market. For example, pricing consultants may work to reduce churn for a SaaS organization by understanding customers’ needs, what they value and how they make choices. Success is measured by an increase in adoption and revenue.
Offer options: Offering choices with good-better-best options and bundles that meet varying needs, use cases and budgets can reveal a lot about a customer. KPIs here include customer adoption and employing Give-Gets to protect price/value alignment.
Perception of discounts: It’s also important to understand how customers perceive discounts and how they influence purchasing decisions. This information is also used to inform pricing strategies that maximize revenue while maintaining loyalty.
A pricing expert will know when and how to use each of these tactics to develop the deepest understanding of the customer base for your particular industry.
Some businesses never realize the potential of their products or services because they’re not charging the right price.
By blindly setting prices without conducting proper diligence, you’re leaving money on the table. Depending on the size of your business, this could mean millions of dollars.
Fortunately, there’s a roster of expertly vetted price consultants ready for you to hire from within the BluWave Business Builders’ Network.
We have thoroughly evaluated each and every pricing resource that’s been invited into our network so that you can move forward with confidence. These niche-specific resources have invaluable experience helping companies like yours optimize prices.
Whether you’re a PE firm working with a portco, or a private or public company that wants to accelerate revenue growth, we already have the right service provider for you.
Service Provider Type: Interim Executive with Manufacturing Expertise
Industry: Manufacturing – Glass
Need
Interim CEO
Struggling to get the right CEO in place for its portco, the PE firm needed a stopgap while it prepared an internal candidate to take over as its long-term chief executive officer.
Challenge
Underperforming Portco
A glass company with a great product line couldn’t keep up with consumer demand. After years of underperformance throughout the holding period, the PE firm was underwater on its investment. Having broken covenants with its bank while battling labor and equipment issues, the team was desperate for a quick turnaround.
They identified a strong internal candidate to take over in the long run, but he needed some guidance to grow into the role. To help him get up to speed, they needed an interim CEO who could serve as a mentor while refining operations at multiple plants across the U.S.
How BluWave Helped
The Business Builders’ Network
The BluWave Vetted™ Business Builders’ Network features a deep bench of hand-selected interim executives, ready to step into a new role on short notice. We immediately contacted the best and brightest leadership talent in the manufacturing industry from within our network and presented a short list of candidates that same week.
The team’s top choice was identified just one day after the initial scoping call, and the interim CEO stepped into the role shortly after. We maintained contact with both the temporary executive as well as the PE firm throughout the entire engagement – and beyond – to ensure the relationship was fruitful.
Result
The veteran executive righted the ship during a six-month stint, buying the PE firm time to name a full-time CEO
The career interim executive hit the ground running and brought stability to the portco. In the meantime, the private equity firm identified and groomed its permanent replacement from within.
The interim executive we provided from our PE-grade network stepped in and mentored the presumptive leader to prepare them to take the reins. At the end of the six-month engagement, the transition was complete and the full-time CEO remains in place to this day as the company continues to grow. Now the PE firm can focus on winding down its holding period and preparing the manufacturing company for sale.
Companies conduct voice of customer (VoC) studies to better understand how people interact with their product or service.
While there are many techniques to gather this information, the objective is largely the same: Ensure the customer is being heard and served as best as possible.
Private equity firms, portfolio companies, and private and public companies can all benefit from a strong voice of customer framework.
“Voice of the customer is extremely important to businesses because it allows companies to have visibility into where they are performing highly and where they are not,” says Brandon John, BluWave’s service provider relationship manager. “By hearing exactly how their customers feel about their brand, they can allocate the appropriate resources to improve some identified areas.”
Let’s talk about some of the advantages organizations can gain with the information gathered in VoC research.
Benefits of VoC
There are several advantages to conducting a voice-of-customer survey. It come as no surprise, then, that it’s been top-of-mind for our clients for years.
“VoC projects are always going to be something PE firms prioritize with their portcos,” John says. “We receive steady demand in this space and have since BluWave was founded.”
Rather than merely gathering feedback, VoC research helps companies reimagine their products and services to surpass customers’ needs by gaining an intricate understanding of who they are and what they want.
This includes how and when they use the product, as well as why they’re more (or less) likely to choose it over a competitor.
Listening to customers and resolving their concerns establishes trust and loyalty, decreasing attrition and boosting customer lifetime value.
A client is more likely to stick with a brand that it feels has its best interests in mind.
Better Business Decisions
Actionable insights gleaned from customer input can steer key business choices around product roadmaps, marketing campaigns, pricing strategies and service models.
Increased Bottom Line
An unparalleled customer experience not only spurs growth, but also a competitive edge. One study showed that companies with strong VoC programs boast 10X more annual revenue growth.
Enhanced Customer Satisfaction
Catering to customers’ needs and wants forges lasting connections. It not only enhances the existing customer experience, but makes it more likely to acquire new ones as you get a better grasp on your target market.
This can have a compound effect as a happy customer is also more likely to recommend your brand or service to friends, families, colleagues and industry peers.
Employee Retention
This might come as a surprise, but your own employees can also benefit from VoC studies. That’s because it gives them a stronger connection to the customer by putting themselves in their shoes. The more aligned the employees are with the clients, the more satisfied they tend to be, thus limiting turnover.
To comprehensively capture the opinions of your customers, you should employ multiple avenues for feedback, including surveys, social media, reviews, emails and phone calls.
By using a variety of channels to gather input, companies can gain a multifaceted understanding of client needs and desires that fuels business decisions, improved experiences and financial gains.
Choose Timing Wisely
The timing of requests for customer feedback can significantly impact the quality and amount of responses. Businesses should choose a moment that is relevant, convenient and respectful for clients, such as after a purchase, service interaction or milestone.
Businesses that are considerate in their requests for input are more likely to receive thoughtful, actionable responses that can drive key business decisions and improved outcomes.
The best moment to act on feedback received is as soon as possible. While you want to be diligent about understanding and applying what customers tell you, times is of the essence.
This is especially important when it comes to fixing problems, resolving negative feedback and staying ahead of competitors.
Segmentation
To gain business insights, companies should analyze customer feedback and group clients by factors like demographics or habits. Tailoring actions to different groups helps build loyalty and boost revenue.
It also establishes trust, decreases attrition and increases lifetime value by making each experience as tailored as possible.
The quality of your feedback depends largely on the quality of your questions. You should ask clear, concise and specific questions that are easy to understand and answer. You should also avoid leading, biased or ambiguous questions that can skew your results.
The value of customer input hinges greatly on the quality of the questions posed. Aim for clear, crisp and targeted inquiries that are easy to comprehend and respond to. Avoid being suggestive, biased or obscure lines of questioning that can skew results.
Your goal is to learn what customers think about your business, not try to convince them of something.
Acknowledge Feedback
One of the most important VoC best practices is to acknowledge your customers’ feedback and show them that you appreciate their time and opinions. There’s never been more competition for our time, so the fact that someone is willing to participate in your study means they probably have strong feelings.
Follow up with a thank-you message, sharing how their feedback will be used or even offering a reward (see below).
Share Findings Internally
To turn feedback into action, you need to share your findings with the relevant stakeholders in your organization. You should communicate the key insights, recommendations and action plans to your employees, managers and leaders. You should also encourage collaboration and accountability across different teams and departments.
Benchmark Against Your Industry
To measure your performance and progress against your competitors and industry standards, you should benchmark your VoC metrics against external data sources. You can use industry reports, surveys or benchmarks to compare your customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy levels with others in your field.
Test and Optimize
VoC best practices are dynamic, not static. You should constantly refine your program to ensure that it is effective, efficient and aligned with your overall business goals.
This can be done with A/B testing, analytics or feedback loops to evaluate and improve your VoC methods, tools and strategies.
Involve Key Stakeholders
To ensure that your VoC program has the support and resources it needs to succeed, you should involve key stakeholders from the start.
Identify decision-makers, influencers and beneficiaries of your program and engage them in defining the goals, scope and outcomes of your efforts.
Offer Participation Incentives
To increase your response rates and motivate your customers to share their feedback , you can offer participation incentives such as discounts, coupons, freebies or loyalty points.
Choose incentives that are relevant, attractive and proportional to the effort required from your customers.
The expert service providers in the BluWave network know the importance of understanding your customers.
We constantly vet and re-vet the best third-party resources for this exact need, no matter what your customer type or industry.
“We have a solid bench of VoC providers in the BluWave network,” says John, who interacts with these third-party resources on a daily basis. “However, it is important to have the right group, for the right need, at the right time.”
Contact our research and operations team and walk us through your VoC needs. In less than one business day, we’ll introduce you to two or three exact-match options.
“Like all service toolboxes in the BluWave network, the VoC toolbox is always rapidly expanding,” John adds.
Once you make a selection, we’ll hold the service provider accountable from start to finish as they bring their voice of customer expertise to your specific situation.
Business intelligence continues to be among the most high-demand services in the Business Builders’ Network.
One aspect of BI&A that’s popular is automation.
The founding partner of one of our BluWave service providers says BI automation is essential to modernizing data analysis.
“A lot of times the process involves people pulling data into spreadsheets manually, analyzing, cleaning, doing stuff with the data and then giving it to their bosses or whoever downstream needs them,” says the partner, Mike Datus*. “That’s usually a very error-prone process because it’s done by humans.”
Business intelligence automation is the process of consolidating and streamlining your company’s data into a single warehouse that can be accessed in real-time.
Automation provides instantaneous insights that forgo manual input and data manipulation to give team members actionable, consistent information to drive their day-to-day decisions.
Put another way, it helps you automate business processes.
Companies that are older, or perhaps resource-challenged, can benefit greatly from automating their data collection and analysis.
Another data firm’s founding partner, who we’ll call Steve Holms*, puts it this way:
“Holding larger data sets and integrating more data sources to do analysis across several different places makes it a lot easier to analyze.”
It’s no surprise that business intelligence tools are in such high demand. We have seen countless PE firms and other companies streamline processes and improve real-time decision-making because of them.
Here are just a few of the reasons why you should consider implementing or upgrading your automation efforts.
Save Time
Not only will you complete key tasks sooner, but you’ll be able to make important decisions faster, too.
“You’re talking about orders of seconds instead of hours or days, right? And then that’s huge,” Datus says. “With one of our clients, we built a platform, so instead of waiting a week, the CFO now had a live dashboard in board meetings. So when he was asked a question, he didn’t have to say, ‘I’ll get back to you next week.’ He literally just popped up his dashboard, did a quick filter, and had the answer.”
Our service providers often see situations where top executives need different versions of the same report depending on who they’re working with or what meeting they’re in at a given moment.
This often meant one-off iterations of the same data sets that take might not be available the same day, or even week.
“If the analyst has to go back, they have to go back and pull the data again, do the analysis, run it through, right? That’s another runtime,” says Holms, who noted that those iterations add up.
Another time-saving scenario is if an analyst leaves the company, is on vacation or has an emergency. Data analysis doesn’t stop as soon as that key player becomes unavailable.
“You only have to program it once, and you’re done,” Holms says. “It’s all in the database, and they don’t have to email anybody in case they didn’t get the report.”
Have you ever tried to access a report so robust that you thought your computer might break down? You’re not alone.
Another benefit of business intelligence automation is the ability to scale.
“Sometimes your data’s so large, it’s hard for Excel to even open, right?” Holms says. “How does sales correlate with product performance, correlate with manufacturing, correlate with this? —putting it in one place makes things a lot easier to expand.”
Save Money
There are multiple ways BI automation can save your company money:
You may be able to reduce headcount on your analytics team and reinvest those savings elsewhere
The time you do save – as mentioned earlier – is time for which you’re no longer paying
The data itself could unveil inefficiencies in your business that are ripe for improvement
Manual intervention is expensive. By cutting out intermediaries, and empowering decision-makers more quickly, they can use expertise that no program can account for to make impactful decisions
Consistency
Humans are much more error-prone than machines. Especially well-designed and well-programmed machines.
While you wouldn’t want to automate a process so heavily that it’s no longer monitored, the correct calibration can set your team much more at ease.
“You’re building good processes to make sure it’s consistent. It’s done by computers, so once you do it once it’s pretty robust, unless the data itself changes or the business changes,” Holms says. “Sometimes you just get errors that are difficult to detect. And if you want to go back to see what were my numbers last week or two weeks ago or three months ago, you have to go into your email inbox and search for the report.”
With BI automation, you can leave the inbox behind and find everything you need in your dashboard.
“It’s all in the database,” Holms says, “and they don’t have to email anybody in case they didn’t get the report.”
Dynamic Reports
As we already hinted at above, automated dashboards and visualizations are essentially living, breathing databases.
Instead of plugging new information into a spreadsheet every time you want to update a report, it’s available instantaneously. Not only that. Since it’s connected to the source, you don’t have to input the data at all.
“Once you have it all there getting updated predictably, you can create these really rich charts and graphs, because with these tools you can get these visuals that aren’t static,” Datus says. “The real-time dashboards update as the data comes into the system. So if you want to see one chart or the set of 20 charts for last week just for finance, you can click a few things, and you can get that report.”
While automation can be valuable to a business, it doesn’t come without some potential downside. With the right help, though, we believe all of these can be overcome.
Job Loss
Automation may replace human workers and lead to job losses – at least in the short term.
A benefit of this, though, is that it frees those some people up to learn and use new skills that are equally valuable to the business. Money saved on one area of human capital can be reinvested in your talent.
System Failures
Automated systems can experience technical issues, thereby disrupting business operations. You would hope that this is the exception and not the norm, but even so, manual intervention may be required to fix the issues.
Expert service providers, however, are familiar with the most common vulnerabilities, and will know how to not only fix them, but also proactively prevent them.
Automated systems are designed to handle repetitive, routine tasks in a predetermined manner. They may lack the flexibility to adapt to unexpected situations or changes.
This is quickly changing, though, with the implementation of more and more AI tools that can often course-correct much faster than humans.
This perceived “risk” is quickly becoming a moot point in many senses.
Cost
Implementing and maintaining automated systems can be expensive. This is most likely to be an issue for very small businesses that have less to automate and can handle all their data by traditional means.
Large companies with more robust budgets will probably find that the investment is well worth it in the long run. This includes private equity firms, their portcos, and private and public companies of all shapes and sizes.
While automation involves these and other risks, it’s an increasingly valuable and in-demand facet of business intelligence. Based on the feedback we receive from our clients and expert service providers, we wouldn’t shy away from exploring how your business can benefit from automation.
Now that you have considered the pros and cons of BI Automation, it’s time to look at the tools at your disposal. While all of these can have a significant impact on your business, you want to make sure you’re using the right ones.
Let’s get familiar with a few of the high-level categories, as well as some specific business automation technologies within them. That way, when our research and operations team connects you to a tailor-made, niche-specific firm to set up your BI automation, you’ll have an idea of what you’re looking for.
Dashboards
BI automation dashboards display key performance indicators, data points and other important metrics in an easy-to-understand format. They provide a 360-degree view of performance using charts, graphs and other visuals.
They offer a quick-glance overview of your organization’s most important metrics, allowing users to quickly identify areas of strong or weak performance, spot emerging trends and gain data-driven insights. Some examples include Power BI, Tableau and Qlik Sense.
Common metrics used to evaluate business performance are cash flow, customer satisfaction and website traffic. Others include sales revenue and customer loyalty.
When you work with an experienced data analytics firm, they’ll be able to match your business needs to the right tools.
Visualizations
BI automation visualizations enable end users to execute automated workflows based on insights within a report. The workflows can be data-contextual, meaning they can change based on filters.
They are often used to connect multiple data sources, create interactive dashboards and charts, provide real-time visualizations and alerts and utilize natural language processing.
This type of BI automation tool leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to automatically generate and apply predictive models based on data insights. Predictive models are employed to forecast what may occur in the future dependent on historical and current data.
These are often used to predict things like customer churn, sales revenue and product demand. They’re especially utilized in the healthcare, finance and marketing industries.
Data mining techniques to extract valuable insights from large data sets for making more informed decisions. It’s a branch of data science that searches for patterns, anomalies and correlations in using statistics, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
It’s often used to solve customer segmentation, fraud detection and market basket analysis. Many of the tools listed in the sections above can also be used for these tasks.
If a lot of this sounds new to you and your team, that’s OK. In fact, Holms says that even a well-composed manual report can be a great launching point for BI automation.
“I would say even if you have an Excel report and it’s a good Excel report, you’re already ahead of the game,” he says.
If you don’t know where to start, set up a scoping call with our research and operations team. We’ll connect you to world-class firms like Datus’s, Holms’, or other PE-grade service providers that can serve your exact needs for your particular industry.
*Privacy is important to us. While the source and company name have been changed, these are real quotations from a real service provider in the BluWave Business Builders’ Network.
