"One hour has turned into five minutes" at BizReach


Tableau: What’s your priority when it comes to data analysis?
Shinichiro Ogawa, Service Planning Manager & Media Producer: I believe the most important thing is that data be visualized and viewed at all times.

Tableau: What was your job like before Tableau?
Ogawa: While we used to use Excel to save and report on the data generated, we've changed this for Tableau, and now we are using it in a format we can view daily.

Tableau: And how has Tableau changed things?
Ogawa: Basically, I feel that one hour has turned into five minutes.

Where I think it really adds value is its ability to constantly visualize the situation, because what you want to know from routine minimum monitoring is actually limited. So, we're working to achieve that as a first step.

Tableau: What would your job be like without Tableau?
Ogawa: If we were not using Tableau, we would check reports only once a week. Issues won't be detected nor solved quickly.

So I think the value of this is that we are now able to solve problems faster.

Tableau: Tell us more about BizReach
Ogawa: In the Service Planning Division we mainly think about how to make our services easier to use for jobseekers using the BizReach business job search site.

It's basically an internet site, and so we think about what plans to adopt and what challenges are on the horizon, while looking at data and monitoring how users are operating the site and reacting to that on a day-to-day basis.

While I think the essence of our department is making new plans and adding new value for users, I feel the ability to free up time is a bigger benefit than the direct impact on reporting work.

Tableau: What are you using Tableau Desktop for?
Ogawa: So anything which is output as CSV by our report server is processed with Tableau Desktop and distributed by email to all members.

Tableau: What were some of the pre-Tableau data challenges?

I really believe we've entered a world in which you can complete things in minutes or seconds. In particular I think it's alleviated the load on people who are putting out reports.

Ogawa: In particular, writing SQLs to pull out data inevitably took a lot of time. but now we can get data just by making a simple small change, it's become the simplest thing.

With SQL, we prepare data good enough to let things at least go smoothly. And then they are read with Tableau, you can visualize the data you want to see easily just by pivoting. I really believe we've entered a world in which you can complete things in minutes or seconds. In particular I think it's alleviated the load on people who are putting out reports.

Tableau: How much of a difference does that time savings make?
Ogawa: I think it's really a waste to spend time on the routine reports, as I've explained. I think the most valuable thing is that the burden disappears and you have time to consider other more creative ideas and to go and interview the users themselves.

Tableau: Tell us more about your data sources and storage.
Ogawa: We use AWS as our database, so it connects to AWS.

What we're working on right at the moment is a format called data mart, as well as launching a Redshift server on AWS. We're currently looking at connectivity with Redshift.

Tableau: How did you first hear about Tableau?
Ogawa: Before joining the company, I was wondering how I would conduct monitoring because it was a venture company. I wouldn't have the manpower. When I asked about this I was told there were good BI tools, and I was introduced to Tableau, so I first heard about it through conversation.

Tableau: How important is easy, frequent access to data to data analysis?
Ogawa: When reporting, it's inevitable that you'll need someone's help, and even if they keep on top of the task, in practice this is likely to be once a week or once every two or three days, which is of course a little too infrequent. If it's viewed every day or when necessary, you can confirm the changes that have occurred, and see on a daily basis what services that site offers. I think it's really important to be able to see those in a matter of seconds, and I've set realizing this as a tentative goal.