All Business User Stories

In 1947, Kilwins opened its first chocolate shop in Petoskey, Michigan. Since then, nearly 100 franchises have opened their doors across the country. And with decadent offerings such as fudge, ice cream, and a signature treat called the Tuttle, it's no wonder this chocolatier has been so successful! But even with such a delicious existence, something was missing from this business' life. We know, it's hard to believe. But in a recent interview with Jeff Hall—Kilwins' Director of Marketing, Commerce, and IT—we learned what happened when Kilwins added a new ingredient: a better business intelligence tool.

Last month was Data Journalism Month over on the Tableau Public site, and we had the pleasure of shining the spotlight on the women and men who tell the world's data stories for their profession. We interviewed Sarah Ryley from the New York Daily News and Claire Miller from the Trinity Mirror in the UK. We shared our thoughts on how data visualization enhances the news, and we announced a 5 week online course for journalists. We joined journalists at news:rewired, Tapestry and NICAR, and posted some of the training materials we covered.

Pete Misner, a principal in a school district that's located just northeast of Seattle, is passionate about data. And he has always valued its use in the classroom to better understand student needs. In a recent interview, Misner discussed how data can improve decision-making in schools. And as a grassroots data analyst who’s never been afraid to crunch the numbers in Excel, he also explained why better visualization tools can save time and other sparse resources in the educational space.

We visited One Kings Lane in San Francisco for an on-site interview with the folks behind this retailer's growing success. A rising e-commerce star, One Kings Lane is shaking up the home décor industry with online sales on designer and high-quality vintage items. In this interview, employees at One Kings Lane told us how visual analytics are helping users across the company make speedy, insightful decisions every day.

The Office of Development at Princeton University is responsible for fundraising efforts that ultimately help thousands of students pursue their dreams. And with the major role it plays in financial-aid efforts, it’s no surprise that this office deals with a lot of data. While the Development Office had been using Tableau for years, it hadn’t really tapped into the full potential of the tool—until it connected it to its Oracle database in 2012. The result was a “paradigm shift,” which we recently discussed with Heather Campbell, the Associate Director of Development Research Analytics at Princeton University.

Happy 2014! Hope your new year is off to a great start. Things are definitely great in the land of Tableau blogs. Here's the list of awesome content I've seen during the month of January. I'm filling in for Andy this month, you can always follow him on twitter (@acotgreave) if you want to hear about these posts the moment they are published.

A savings of $20 million. That was the immediate benefit of a Tableau dashboard created by ASM Research for the Army National Guard. Founded in 1975, ASM provides professional services and IT solutions for government organizations—and has worked with such clients as the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. In this video, experts at ASM Research, including Data Analyst Scott Cochran, describe the recent project that saved the National Guard millions of dollars. Says Cochran, “that makes me feel great because it makes me feel like I’m helping reduce the national debt."

As a major marketing company, Merkle is used to handling data from all kinds of sources. And with a number of big-name clients in multiple industries—including Dell, MTV, Susan G. Komen, and Bank of America—the marketing giant is regularly using Tableau with myriad data sources. “It’s actually spreading like wildfire across our entire organization,” says Senior Business Intelligence Analyst David Andrade about Tableau. In this interview, he explains why Merkle uses Tableau for both internal projects and client-facing communications.

For nearly 30 years, International Game Technology (IGT) has been designing and manufacturing computerized gaming equipment for clients around the world. Lon O’Donnell, IGT’s manager of professional services, knows the data-driven science behind casino gaming. In this interview, he explains how IGT is using Tableau to optimize slot machine features in ways that were previously unimaginable. “A single slot machine spits out six to ten fields per hour multiplied by a thousand machines multiplied by 24 hours, multiplied by 365 days,” O’Donnell emphasizes. “So you're looking at about a billion fields per year that a single casino will analyze.”

We love data visualisation competitions. Inspired by Facebook and Emily Kund's efforts, Mike Evans has created VizWars, a data visualisation event in Irvine, California, on February 11th. We recommend you go along and join him for VW1!

Allergan, a multi-specialty healthcare company with operations around the globe, employs more than 11,000 people worldwide. Joe Madigan is the Director of Customer Services in the EMEA region—Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. With so much ground to cover, he’s got a lot of data. In 2009, each of the 12 customer service sites in the EMEA region was using its own contact center technology—which caused data inefficiencies. In this interview, Madigan explains how his team went from 1 Tableau Desktop license to 20—and how that fostered a healthy environment for data and finances.