Hello,

Continuing our series of case studies and presenting examples of how Astir IT products, services, and solutions help businesses like yours, Astir IT would like to discuss data management.  Data has become a more and more critical aspect of virtually every business, shaping everything from out digital presence, our sales and marketing efforts, and our strategic business decisions.  Therefore, it has become overwhelmingly important to have a proper data management system in place.  Whether you need a simple, small-scale database, or a sophisticated data warehouse with a multi-faceted front-end UI for retrieval and analysis, it is necessary that data is collected and stored correctly.  Having an incomplete, fragmented, or otherwise problematic data management system results in bad data and worthless analysis, which derails strategic business decision-making. 

One particular client had this exact problem.  They had the distinct need to replace their current data management system, as their data was plagued by inaccuracies, incomplete entries, and redundancies.  Bad data was skewing their statistical analysis, and they lacked the resources and bandwidth to implement an efficient and effective cleansing process.  The client could not risk making business decisions that were predicated on incorrect data, and eventually, they could not justify the costs associated with the necessary manual intervention needed to cleanse, analyze, and report the intelligence to executives.  They were in dire need of a new data management system that automate their processes, and provide cleaner, more consistent customer data.

In order to rectify this situation, the customer engaged Astir IT to build a new data warehouse and reporting engine.  The requirements were very straight forward: build a new data management system with a front-end reporting UI that would provide sales and marketing with actionable intelligence for their daily operations, and provide executives with clean, reliable analysis for strategic decision making.  Astir used a multi-phased approach in order to cleanse their existing data, migrate it into a new data warehouse, and establish an automated data gathering/input system that would eliminate future occurrences of duplicate or incomplete data entries.  Astir also created a user-friendly, intuitive front-end reporting engine that offered users multilevel dashboards and statistical reports.  The overall solution enabled marketing and sales organizations to efficiently track campaigns, record customer and prospect interactions, fine-tune targeting approaches, and ultimately convert sales. 

The customer executive team was particularly happy with the solution, as they gained a secure, reliable methodology to quickly and accurately measure organizational efforts and output; which could be leveraged to shape the future of their business.

Astir IT was also engaged to provide the customer with an on-site resource for the ongoing, daily management of this new data management solution.  The resource was not only highly skilled in data architecture and database/data warehouse development, he was also an expert in business intelligence.  This resource was able to successfully improve organizational buy-in by continually evolving the system to accommodate changing business requirements and expanding the scope and capabilities of the system.

If you are interested in learning more about how we have addressed a specific topic that you do not see here or on our website (www.astirit.com), please contact us to discuss further.

Data Warehousing, IT Staffing, Project Placement Business Intelligence., Data Analysis, Data Cleansing, Data Gathering, Data Warehousing, Database Management

Hello Everyone,

Data is the life-blood of any business.  It can be used to understand employee behavior, customer interactions, market fluctuations, etc., and it can alter the way business decisions are made.  Your business not only needs reliable access to the right types of data, you need that data to be clean, free of duplicates and mistakes, and available for complex analysis.  Astir IT specializes in business intelligence and Big Data and would like to present you with a case study of how we helped a client optimize their data environment.

As always, if you are interested in learning more about how we have addressed a specific topic that you do not see here or on our website (www.astirit.com), please contact us to discuss further.

We had a customer who had a data problem.  Data on customers, employees, competitors, etc. was all collected using different methods and housed in different places.  The customer lacked the expertise and tools necessary to combine, clean, and analyze the data in any meaningful way, and their strategic business decisions were suffering from it.  The customer came to Astir IT needing the creation and maintenance of operational dashboards.

After working closely with the customer, there were four (4) main operational areas that were affected by this lack of actionable data: HR, Finance, Accounts Payable/Receivable, and Operations.  Astir tackled the initial business analysis task, and helped the customer fully flush out the requirements:

• Human Resources Analytics: Identifying headcount trends, attrition rates, employee demographics, etc. in order to provide insight into trends concerning hiring, terminations, and retention.
• Finance Analytics: Advanced analytics in the area of bookings-to-revenue lifecycle; giving the client an accurate representation of the ordering process, backlogs, reserves, and billings in order to make inferences and trending projections for upcoming quarters.
• Invoice Analytics: Invoicing specific analytics designed to flush out information throughout the invoicing lifecycle; such as policy violations, expenditures, supplier lists, etc.
• Forecasting: Inference based analytics measuring planning, financial forecasting, expense data, cost center levels, account expenses, etc.

Once the business intelligence metrics were fully defined, a dashboard solution was implemented that initially combined, standardized, cleansed, and deduped existing data in order to populate a series of multi-tier dashboards.  In order to maintain these dashboards and ensure the customers ongoing ability to make use of the dashboards, a set of proper procedures were designed and implemented to collect and transmit data into a single repository, which was mined by the dashboards.  The customer was presented with a reliable and secure methodology to consistently measure and understand the right data in order to improve their strategic business decisions.

Application Development, Astir IT, Mobile Application Development Business Intelligence, Astir IT Solutions, BI, Custom Development, Data Analysis

Hello,

There is a tremendous amount of data available to your organization.  Every action you, your team, your customers, your prospects, etc. take generates data that can be invaluable for your business strategies.  This information can be influential to your processes and workflows, as well as how you market your brand and interact with customers.  Your organization needs to take full advantage of this data; because your competition definitely is.

There are multiple roadblocks that can keep you from accessing this information.  For some organizations, the problem is a matter of collecting and housing that data.  Knowing that there is data available to you, and even knowing how to use that data, is meaningless until you are able to properly gather, cleanse, and house it.  This step may not be very easy, as collection methods can range depending on your target audience and the types of information needed.  Additionally, as the volume of information increases, the likelihood of redundancies, incomplete, and bad data increase; making it abundantly necessary to perform both initial cleansing and routine maintenance.  This is compounded by the need for a system to store, manipulate, and retrieve this information easily and efficiently.

Then there is the problem of what to do with your data.  The knowledge of how to slice apart, massage, and interpret data is not always readily accessible.  Sometimes the problem is as simple as where to start.  you may have access to a ton of data, but have no clue what types of measurements you need to fully leverage this information.  Other times, it is a matter of not knowing how to perform the measurements. Certain types of data analysis, such as median and average measurement are simple; but when you need to look at intervening and mediating variables through the use of regression analysis, you may not have the knowledge or tools.  

Finally, there is the problem of visualization and demonstration.  In order to demonstrate the conclusions and insights drawn from your data to stakeholders, you need the right visuals.  You need to understand how exactly to show data in the correct formats in order for your audiences to easily understand and digest your findings.  Again, the difficulties in this area can be both knowledge share and access to tools.  Either way, unless you have the best charts, graphs, and tables, you may not be able to properly convey impact.

Astir understands these business problems, and specializes in custom designing data solutions.  We have products and services that can help you gather, cleanse, house, retrieve, analyze, and display your data.  We work closely with clients in order to understand their data and reporting needs, and custom design solutions that help leverage data in order to improve businesses.

Give me a call today (908)279-8670 x716 and we can discuss how Astir can help you make the most of your data.

Thanks!

Adam Moltisanti

Manager, Marketing and Vendor Relations

Astir IT, Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing Astir IT, Data Warehousing, Database Management, Data Analysis, Dashboard, Data Gathering, Data Cleansing

Hello,

All businesses have the distinct need to gather and analyze data.  That data may concern employees, customers, departments, revenue, etc… and it can take many forms.  Through the detailed analysis of this data, businesses can gain a deep insight into the different aspects of their organization, and learn where resources can be concentrated.  Yet, with the importance of data gathering and analysis, many organizations don’t have the know-how or means to take advantage of the information out there.

Astir IT has extensive experience in data gathering, analysis, and reporting.  Our expert IT professionals can design a system that gathers, cleans, houses, analyses, and reports on your data… and can even help maintain and interpret the output of your new system.  Astir IT can provide in-depth understanding of the different areas of your business, so you know what works, what doesn't, what needs retooling, and where resources are best spent.

Astir IT has over 10 years of experience, and has over 250 IT experts; many of whom are placed with Fortune 500 companies.  Our expertise can help improve your organization by providing custom solutions and services that fit your exact needs.  I would love to further discuss our services with you, so please give me a call at (908) 279-8670 ext. 716.

Best Regards,

Adam Moltisanti

Manager, Marketing and Vendor Relations

Application Development, Astir IT, Blog, BlogEngine.NET, Business Intelligence, CRM, Data Warehousing, Recent Posts data gather, data analysis, CRM, Customer Relationship Management, Business Intelligence.