In today’s hyper-competitive global economy, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for companies to differentiate themselves by price or product.
However, one distinction that every company has to its advantage is unique information about its customers that it’s able to act on.
In business for more than 50 years, Jaeckle Distributors’ five locations provide flooring and countertops to customers in the Midwestern US. As the flooring and countertops industry has become increasingly commoditized, Jaeckle Distributors sought ways to use available information to help distinguish itself from its competitors.
It once took hours for executives and other decision-makers at Jaeckle Distributors to gather data from multiple sources to help make decisions. But even then, company leaders felt as if they weren’t always gaining rich insights into potential market and operational performance opportunities.
Once the company adopted TIBCO Spotfire’s data analytics and data visualization tools, executives and other knowledge workers were able to obtain immediate and actionable insights. For instance, the use of data analytics and data visualization tools has helped Jaeckle Distributors uncover critical insights about its underperforming St. Louis branch.
Although company executives thought they knew the reasons the office was experiencing issues with its profit margins, using Spotfire’s data analytics helped them identify the real shortcomings they were then able to address.
Jaeckle Distributors has also been able to use Spotfire’s data analytics to provide its customers with actionable insights about factors that are shaping housing markets and other business trends.
For example, if Jaeckle Distributors is able to determine that housing starts rose by X percent in a particular geography, it can then inform its customers that demand for certain types of flooring is expected to rise and then help those clients capture those opportunities.
“It changes the sales relationship in a powerful way,” says Jeff Jaeckle, President of Jaeckle Distributors. “We become an information provider who happens to be a very good distributor, rather than just a very good distributor whose competitors are also pretty good.”
Senior management was the first group within Jaeckle Distributors to use TIBCO Spotfire data analytics for ad hoc analysis. Once senior management gained experience using the tools, they were then rolled out to the sales force.
Looking ahead, all the employees in the company who rely on data are going to be using Spotfire to assist them with more timely and effective decision-making, says Jaeckle.
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