As President Sean Paley explains, “Our products generate a lot of data, and we wanted a tool that would visualize that data and help us understand who is using our products and why, the most effective marketing channels, and the impact our products were having. We needed analytics that would help us understand the cost of building our products.”

Says Director of Operations Eleanor Vajzovic, “Data wasn’t the first thing we thought of as we were building products, and what we realized was that we weren’t basing decisions on facts, but on emotions and gut instincts. We weren’t making the right decisions.”

“We needed to satisfy three use cases,” says Mr. Paley. “The casual user needing to see KPIs and how a product was performing; individuals needing to drill into the data and learn how a product could be optimized; and analysts needing to do very deep analysis and find new opportunities and new ways to look at the data.”

“I was familiar with TIBCO Spotfire®, having used it before at a sister company,” says Paley. “I knew Spotfire was powerful enough to give us answers. The trust we put into TIBCO is giving our stakeholders better confidence in our ability to generate solutions that provide business value.”

“Initially, we used Spotfire for one key product, says Ms. Vajzovic. “And we found that not using it in other products was risky. We wanted data visibility to be a part of the daily routine of product analytics. That was the key role of our data, and Spotfire is tangible, accessible, and user-friendly. We went back to what was tried and true.”

Fact-Based Decision-Making and Cost Savings
“Increased data visibility has provided many benefits,” says Mr. Paley. “Throughout product lifecycles, we make decisions about whether to continue investing. Many times, Spotfire has told us, based on usage, whether it’s a good investment or not. We’ve observed that one product’s user engagement wasn’t where it needed to be, and we discontinued funding. Data has helped us understand marketing channels, ultimately saving money.”

“It seems that many people feel like you need to be a scientist to actually review data, analyze it. With Spotfire, anyone can be a data scientist,” says Ms. Vajzovic. “Our product managers are able to look at data usage, performance, acquisition, engagement rates—all real data, not anecdotal. We’ve been able to pull from different data sets, combine it all, and see the impact of our products, the impact to sales, revenue growth, or higher productivity for the business. That mix of business information seen through a visualization has been the most powerful technology we could bring.

Deeper Analysis and Product Improvements
Vajzovic continues, “Product managers have tons of data sources from different countries and industries, and all of it was in spreadsheets. It wasn’t telling a story. With Spotfire, we can capture all of those data points from various angles and craft the story of product potential.

“We’re able to see what websites people access, where they apply online. We can make decisions to create applications to enhance the digital experience. We can actually take an action—build a tool kit or application—or understand that we actually need to remove our digital presence in some way because our technology is too advanced for a particular group. Maybe we just need to use texting because that’s what they prefer. So, for us, it’s about taking a look at the full digital landscape, capturing the story through data, and then making rational decisions that are more strategic and impactful.”

Opportunity Discovery
“One of the advantages of being an innovation lab inside a large company like Adecco is that we have a lot of data, and the ability to visualize it to identify opportunities for new products has led to some exciting innovations,” says Mr. Paley. “We’ve been able to identify new use cases for products, in some cases doubling our capabilities for providing increased business value to our users.”

“With this powerful analytics tool, Ignite can make killer products to not only generate revenue but improve operational efficiency,” says Vajzovic. “With Spotfire, I know that we’ll be able to combine the technological with the business impact.”

“Our goal is to build on the success of our products and continue to find problems we can solve with technology,” says Paley.

“Looking at the business through data, showing the revenue possibilities and how our products tie in to turn possibility into reality—that’s the power of visualizations. That’s the future, and that’s what Spotfire does for us,” concludes Vajzovic.