Spotify-backed Soundtrack Your Brand turns big data into music

Soundtrack Your Brand's business intelligence department uses Tableau Desktop’s native connector to bring in data from Google BigQuery, sharing workbooks with the business over Tableau Cloud. Björn Idren, Head of Business Intelligence, explains how he used to be a “BI dinosaur.” But he soon found that with Tableau, he could analyze millions of rows of data and answer questions faster than before. Agility and innovation, all in one place. Björn says, “Tableau is a great tool to show data that you already have, and it'll feed your interest and curiosity… Now I work more with an open canvas.”

Tableau: Can you tell us a little about Soundtrack Your Brand? Björn Idren, Head of Business Intelligence: I work as head of business intelligence and analytics at Soundtrack Your Brand, a Spotify-founded company that addressed Spotify for businesses, so basically how you would play music in a store or a restaurant, how you do distribution to that, and what you play. Tableau: What was your experience with BI solutions before Tableau? Björn: I've been working with business intelligence for more than ten years, and in retrospect—I was a BI dinosaur. I used the ERP solutions, the IBM, Microsoft, MicroStrategy kind of BI solution, and I had the same approach over and over again.

Tableau: What was your experience when you first found Tableau? Björn: There I was sitting with Tableau and it took me two weeks, and then I just loved it. I'd seen it before, and I liked it, but I've never been able to use it much. Tableau: How do your analysts use Tableau and what kinds of data are typical? Björn: We use Tableau Cloud. We have a couple of licenses there. And then Tableau Desktop. All our data reside in Google BigQuery, both application data, as well as normalized data and data warehouse. Tableau: What did you initially think about using the cloud? Björn: At Soundtrack Your Brand, all our data reside in the cloud, which was very new for me. And it's totally amazing, and I will never ever go back to not having the data in the cloud. Tableau: How has Tableau affected your work style and how analysts solve problems? Björn: Now I work more with an open canvas. I can sit next to the business, show them the data that they have. They would pick up on things that I wouldn't have thought of. Many times the iteration process goes much faster with Tableau sitting next to the business.