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Michael says data streams included CSV, Excel, or Salesforce along with donations over time, who gave how much, when they gave it, and in what fundraising program. What may have looked like a very straightforward, neat, and organized Excel document from a foundation, actually possessed a great deal of insight that could be derived from it if the data was manipulated strategically. Michael’s goal was to dig into what donations amount to loyalty, how contributions come in, renewal rate, weight of attrition, and much more. On top of this, because CESM is looking at time series data and is able to look at time analysis, like seasonality or cycles of giving, there were even more insights to be discovered. However, after many days of work, all Michael could say was, for example, 'in 2006, your renewal rate was 60%.' Looking at data that was static, he was unable to go further without putting a lot more effort into it. It was time to find a better solution, and that is where Sisense came in.

Advocate’s old system had problems with speed and scalability. It could take multiple hours to produce an extract, often timing out during the process and failing. On top of this, it was very slow to refresh, was dated, and most importantly, could not handle their growing amounts of data.

The Arizona Department of Health Services faced significant challenges in quickly analyzing data from newborn screenings. The process was labor-intensive and relied heavily on Excel spreadsheets, making it difficult to identify trends and quality issues in a timely manner. This delay in data analysis could lead to serious health consequences for newborns, as early detection and treatment of disorders are crucial. The department needed a more efficient and user-friendly solution to manage and analyze the data effectively.

Bold collects a huge volume of data, currently 60TB, and actively analyzes 2TB. They provide subscription-based services, including resume builders, cover letter builders, interview prep, job postings, and worker postings. Each subscription has different frequencies and levels that need to be tracked. They wanted to see which subscription types were getting renewed the most, which products were being purchased the most, and the most effective model for connecting employees to employers. Their existing tool for visualizing transactional data was not meeting their needs. Balaji Jayapal, Head of BI and Big Data, sought a better way to manage their 2TB of transactional data and visualize it effectively.

Casumo employees were not able to create their own business reports without the assistance of the data team and lacked information about crucial departmental KPIs. Emanuele decided it was time to move beyond time-consuming manual reporting, creating a forward-thinking approach to company data with standardized reporting and a centralized BI system. This would allow company employees to successfully integrate their own data sources and develop easily understood business reports, complete with data drill-down and ad-hoc reporting. After discovering Sisense online, Emanuele decided to move forward with a free trial. He was immediately impressed with Sisense’s ability to quickly connect to its Amazon Redshift database and crunch data into the Elasticube. The performance was significant, allowing him to generate useful reports on the very first day. Sisense gave Emanuele an end-to-end solution for ETL and reporting. He found that with just one hour of introduction to Sisense for his users, they were able to build their own dashboards and start getting the insights that they needed to effectively do their job, with minimal support from his staff.

With the vast amount of data that CTSI was pulling in each day through millions of invoices and bills, they wanted to find a system that could visualize this data for their customers and provide a place where they could track key trends in the shipping industry. They were not able to provide any kind of deep view into transactions and wanted to offer their customers the chance to see what was going on with their bills on a day to day basis. But taking it one step further, they needed a platform that their customers would actively sign into in order to track those trends. For Todd, getting their services personnel on board and regularly checking the data was a must in order to provide the best analytics and data information.

ES Originals faced significant issues with disparate and disconnected data, with nearly 1000 reports running against their ERP system. This led to logistical challenges, as reports were static and required new reports for any additional fields or selection criteria. The company needed a unified and standardized reporting system to streamline the process and reduce the number of reports. Additionally, salespeople had to bring hard copies of reports to client sites due to unreliable internet connections, and data from partners came in different formats, complicating the reporting process.

After a huge restructuring effort, FirstPort realized that its organizational decision making was in need of a serious overhaul. Monthly board meetings were led by senior department managers, all with conflicting agendas and data to match. At this point in time, no one could even say with any certainty the amount of properties FirstPort managed. According to Alex, “If you asked three people you’d get three different answers.” Alex recognized the opportunity to not only unify the organization’s decision making process, but lead the company into a golden era of insight. FirstPort was generating so much data from its day-to-day operations, customer queries, financial information, and new business opportunities that they were overwhelmed. They knew they could add value and make improvements for both the customers and company if they could just tap into the data. Alex and his team needed to drive improvements in data related reporting and decisions for customers and staff members, yet lacked the necessary tools and resources to do so, having only Excel and Powerpoint. To meet their objectives, they estimated that it would take up to one year of effort if they doubled the size of their existing BI team of five. Alex decided that the right direction for FirstPort was automating as much of the data cleansing and analysis as possible, and to focus the BI team’s talents on analysis rather than ETL. On top of this, Alex needed a vendor that could do all of this in a reasonable period of time - days or weeks, not months or years.

FTA’s member companies needed reliable data on producers to avoid human rights abuses and unsanitary conditions. The manual system for auditing and reporting data was inefficient, making it difficult to provide timely and accurate reports. Members had no way to independently access data, requiring internal resources to manually extract information from various sources. This lack of visibility and efficiency was a significant challenge for FTA.

With over five-billion records to analyze (and growing), Gianmaria's IT group had reached the limits of manual Excel reporting, realizing that Excel was not a scalable solution for its growing data size and scope. Analyzing Kamernet’s website data was fast becoming a burden on an already taxed IT department. Nearly twice a week, IT staff had to manually extract data from an SQL database, analyze the data, and transform the data in Excel reports. However, Excel reporting once again, proved limited. Employees were not able to arrive at quick, intuitive insights, and were having trouble visualizing their data, primarily reporting on revenue, website subscription data, and market-share information.

Red Lobster management needed a clear picture of their hiring processes—an untraceable cycle of hiring, termination, and expenses. The process of recruiting teams and managers was constantly generating data, but it was useless without a centralized analytics solution to process it. Red Lobster needed an HR solution that could govern their large employee base and scale out with their growing chain. The solution would need to replace static reporting with an interactive interface, consolidate disparate data, track candidate life cycles, create a robust talent inventory system with skill gap identification, and create an improved talent review process.

The sales force at Thirty-One Gifts is composed of independent consultants, some of whom are leaders that require business metrics to manage their teams. Many consultants were spending hundreds of dollars per month on third-party services to crunch numbers, which was both time-consuming and costly. The company needed an easy-to-use, self-service tool to help save time and money while providing the necessary business metrics to support remote teams effectively.

Before implementing Logi Analytics, the in-house IT team was constantly working through a queue of customer requests for fixes and improvements to the customer-facing analytics product. The company hired an outside consulting firm to help ease this workload, but it still took weeks to address critical issues outside of the annual release window and was too expensive to continue employing. The company needed a more financially sustainable solution that would allow them to innovate faster. The company needed an embeddable analytics solution that was cost-effective and supported iterative development and innovation for future improvements. It had to be highly usable self-service data product so customers would to be able to learn to use it without extensive training. Logi Analytics met all these criteria and the partnership enabled the company to offer a revamped licensing structure which helped the company to expand its overall reach.

SMC is a private, family-owned corporation headquartered in Springfield, Missouri with 14 locations in Missouri and Kansas. The company distributes the industry’s top automation, data comm, electrical, industrial, pneumatics, safety and security products, typically used in manufacturing facilities, from over 250 manufacturers. When Jesse Owsley, software program manager at SMC joined the company, he quickly realized that reporting capabilities within the organization were very limited and not sufficient for business needs. SMC had multiple databases that held important data. Their business had limited reporting abilities. Staff was either making do with native application reporting, using SQL Management Studio or having an IT staff member write custom reports for users. SMC needed to enable workflows across their multiple systems including Progress/NextGen ERP, document management, proof of delivery, and CRM. It was important to tightly monitor and track orders, inventory and payables as data moved between departments. Hundreds of thousands of records must be managed and exception reporting is very important. Because the data was in disparate systems, it was challenging to efficiently spot exceptions or data discrepancies in real time that could evolve into bigger problems. For example, SMC uses Tour de Force as their CRM. Customer and product data in their ERP is highly dynamic and making changes in the ERP would easily cause discrepancies in the CRM because Tour de Force was expecting the data in a certain way. “This caused issues with user adoption and confidence in the CRM data,” said Owsley. Prior to Informer, Jesse created a spreadsheet to keep track of outlying information as he found it. This was an incredibly tedious and manual process. Accounts Payable staff at SMC were also using spreadsheets to reconcile invoices and purchase orders containing prices charged, freight, product information, etc. Prior to Informer, clerical staff had to call Buyers and manually compare spreadsheets to reconcile data, another manually tedious workflow.

G-Core Labs faced the challenge of building a content delivery network (CDN) that could meet the high demands of Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming (MMOG) end-users. The primary requirements were low latency and ultra-reliability, as any noticeable connection issues would result in a loss of users. Additionally, the network needed to be flexible and responsive to adapt to fluctuating demand and rapid, unpredictable growth in the gaming industry. Accurate forecasting was difficult, making it essential to have a connectivity partner that could provide the necessary flexibility and responsiveness.

Headquartered in the Nordics, this global bank offers a wide range of financial services that includes retail and corporate banking as well as asset management, stock trading and treasury services. Operating in 20 countries worldwide, optimizing its network for zero downtime and low latency is a business critical and vital endeavor. But this was proving a time-consuming and difficult challenge for the bank’s central IT team. Working with multiple local, national and regional suppliers – all providing services with different characteristics, standards and capabilities – meant it was no easy task to maintain the highest levels of performance and management needed across the entire infrastructure. To transform its operations, the bank turned to Telia Carrier to provide a streamlined global solution that would deliver the bandwidth, connectivity and predictability it needed – along with the freedom to control and route traffic according to its own protocols.

The global pharmaceutical company, established in 1977, faced significant challenges in its freight invoice verification process. With hundreds of shipments every month, the company operated on a global long-term price agreement with its freight forwarders. However, errors in the invoice verification process were affecting the productivity and efficiency of its logistics and accounts teams. The logistics team had to manually check every invoice and forward it to the account and finance department for approval. This labor-intensive process involved a large team and kept them from focusing on more critical tasks. Over 4% of the invoices received were duplicates, and the entirely manual verification process made seeking approvals, processing payments, and following up with vendors for the correct invoices extremely difficult and time-consuming. The process was prone to errors, leading to overpayments due to unchecked invoices that did not match the initial quotation. There was also a lack of standardisation and transparency in the invoice reconciliation process. The auditing process was inefficient and complex due to the lack of a consolidated repository to document the invoices and their status.

A leading tyre manufacturing company based in Mumbai, India, with production facilities across the globe, faced a significant challenge due to the Suez Canal blockade in March 2021. The blockade, caused by a skyscraper-sized container ship named Evergreen, left about 200 ships stranded at either end of the canal, severely impacting global trade. The financial implications were massive, with the blockade amounting to a loss of nearly £7 billion of goods a day, or approximately £290 million an hour. The tyre manufacturer's westbound and eastbound shipments were halted, impacting cargo worth $18.5 million. This resulted in delays in the delivery of finished goods, affecting eight customers across Europe and the US. Furthermore, the supply of raw materials to production facilities in India was severely disrupted, causing significant interruptions in the production cycle.

The company, a leading chemical distributor with a presence in over 11 countries, faced significant challenges due to the pandemic-driven port congestion that affected global trade. With over 200 international shipments per month, ensuring timely delivery was a top priority. However, the port congestion disrupted over 51% of the company’s shipments. The prolonged port delays impacted the production cycles of the company’s suppliers, especially in the far East, North America, and Europe, compromising delivery schedules across regions. The company also struggled with a capacity crunch as vessels queued outside ports and turnaround times increased. Securing cargo space became challenging due to lack of visibility over space availability and changes in lead times. Additionally, communication gaps arose as keeping stakeholders informed about changes in arrival timings, delays in transshipments, etc., became increasingly difficult due to a lack of reliable information on port delays and inefficiencies in tracking updates.

The company, a global leader in specialty generic pharmaceuticals, was facing significant challenges in managing its logistics operations. With over 100 monthly shipments via ocean and air, tracking the progress of all freight and assessing the performance of Logistics Service Providers (LSPs) was a daunting task. The communication process was inefficient, with updates on task completion being shared via emails, leading to multiple email trails for each shipment. This made it difficult to map and audit the progress of every shipment. The inability to track shipment status and assign follow-up tasks to stakeholders resulted in hefty penalties like demurrage and detention charges. Furthermore, the negligence of the LSPs could not be identified until the fine was levied. The documentation process was also unorganized, with all shipment documents being shared via email. The lack of a common repository for these documents led to process inefficiencies and difficulty in tracking missing documents.

Mega WeCare, a global pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products manufacturer, was facing several challenges in its logistics operations. The company had a limited vendor pool, which restricted the number of negotiations for each shipment, leading to higher shipping costs. The traditional method of negotiating deals via calls and emails was hampering the productivity and overall efficiency of its logistics team. Many of the company's shipments were contract-based, preventing them from leveraging competitive rates throughout the year. Additionally, the annual contract prices included buffers and contingent costs, resulting in additional expenses for the company. The manual creation of reports led to inefficient data analysis and unclear insights, further complicating the situation.

Boiling Springs Savings Bank, a financial institution with over $1 billion in assets, faced a significant challenge in protecting its customers from online fraud. With the rise of online banking, the bank and its customers were increasingly exposed to identity theft problems. Fraudulent or phishing sites often mimicked the bank's website, making it difficult for customers to distinguish between the authentic site and the fake ones. This issue was further exacerbated by the fact that 24% of consumers refused to conduct business online due to fear of online fraud, and 20% didn't open emails from financial institutions. Furthermore, 65% of consumers considered security protections as a key factor in their choice of bank. The bank needed a solution that would allow customers to verify the authenticity of its website and protect their sensitive information.

Family Fund, the UK's largest provider of grants to low-income families raising disabled or seriously ill children and young people, faced a significant challenge with their email system. In March, they reached out to Comodo's Business and Enterprise Support Team as several of their users were unable to send any emails through the Antispam Gateway's outbound email filters. An initial investigation revealed that these user accounts were attempting to send two to four emails per minute, leading to the Antispam Gateway's sending limits locking these accounts. Further investigation revealed that the existing anti-malware provider had allowed these user's computers to become infected with a spam-sending virus. This situation threatened to disrupt their communication with various stakeholders, including families, donors, and suppliers.

In the highly competitive online retail industry, particularly in the home décor sector, establishing trust with potential customers is a significant challenge. With a wide range of e-merchants, from national retailers to small, one-person businesses, consumers often experience anxiety about who they can trust for their online purchases. Successful e-merchants understand that while effective advertising, a well-merchandised site, and competitive pricing are important, converting visitors to buyers, especially for non-national brands, also requires establishing a level of trust. This is particularly crucial for online transactions where customers need to feel secure in sharing their personal and financial information.

Merchant-Accounts.ca, a Canadian merchant account service provider, was facing a challenge in providing its customers with an easy-to-understand and cost-effective PCI compliance solution. The PCI compliance, a new security standard for online retailers, was technically complex and Merchant-Accounts.ca needed to offer a solution that included mission-critical PCI scanning. The solution had to be affordable and technically supported for small to mid-sized Canadian businesses that may not have a large budget or a dedicated technical staff. Moreover, Merchant-Accounts.ca wanted to reduce the risk of customers migrating to other service providers in search of a PCI compliant scanning provider. Prior to partnering with Comodo, Merchant-Accounts.ca had been providing their clients with the Approved Scanning Vendor list provided by Visa and MasterCard. However, this approach proved to be inadequate as customers had to spend a lot of time sorting through diverse price and service offers, leaving them unsupported with a slew of options to research.

Zamberg.com, a leading distributor of high-quality German grooming products, was facing a significant challenge in earning the trust of new customers on their website. Despite being the largest distributor of products made by craftsmen in Solingen, Germany, and the exclusive U.S. distributor for many European products, the company was struggling with the common consumer fear of online fraud. This fear, which affects 24% of consumers, stems from the potential for scams, phishing, pharming, and 'man in the middle' attacks. The lack of a distinguishing method to assure customers of the website's authenticity and security was hindering Zamberg.com's potential for higher sales growth.

Znappz, a software developer based in the UK and Norway, was facing challenges with their hosting services. They were not satisfied with the security provided by their previous hosting company for their domain. As a company that specializes in mobile games and apps, ensuring the security of their servers was of utmost importance. They needed a solution that could provide robust security for their API server and reassure their users about the safety of their data. The challenge was to find a reliable and cost-effective solution that could be easily integrated into their existing system.