Yota Networks puts data in users' hands with Tableau
Founded in 2007, Yota Networks is a globally-leading company in the LTE sector. Yota Networks specializes in the development and management of 4G infrastructure and provides access to its infrastructure for carriers on a mobile virtual network operator model. Yota Networks is owned by Skartel LLC.
In this video, Yota Networks Project Manager Natalia Lyubimova shares how the telecommunications company is using Tableau to save time with on-the-go network analytics.
Tableau: Would you tell me about your role at Yota? How do you interact with Tableau on a daily basis?
Natalia Lyubimova, Project Manager: I'm a project manager and I work with projects related to Tableau: dashboard developments, dashboard implementations, training and so on.
Tableau: What kind of data do you work with?
Natalia: We mainly work with network statistics. It's an indicator for LTE networks: download networks, qualitative indicators, loading indicators, utilization, successful signaling procedures, processing complaints, breakdowns, work plans and that sort of thing.
Tableau: And what kind of data sources are you connecting with?
Natalia: We have several data sources. Vertica is our main source. It contains up to 80% of all data that we work with. And then there are other information systems too, like geographic information systems, HP service manager, 1C and others.
Tableau: How has Yota’s implementation of Tableau grown?
Natalia: We started implementation of Tableau at our company Yota Networks with one project for network statistics. It should have been a big report on more than 30 regions which should have contained information from numerous pre-existing Excel reports. Today we have more than 10 Tableau projects and they contain not only network and network statistics data, but things like financial data, operating indicators and so on.
Tableau: What kind of impact would you say Tableau has had on Yota Networks?
Natalia: We completely changed the approach to the report development plan, use of reports, approaches to data analysis; we started to have people work with data, analytics and reports. That’s to say it’s not simply a picture that you look at, it’s a picture that you look at and understand. And you can play with it.
Tableau: Do you find that you’re able to save time using Tableau?
Natalia: The amount of time to develop reports has been reduced to a fraction. Before it was a process where we created technical specifications for reports and gave them to developers. Now we actually do it all online each week. That is, it can be done on the go for any idea of the user—we do it right there.
Tableau: That’s great! Have you noticed any other changes that you attribute to Tableau?
Natalia: What really changed was that people afterwards, as we started using some new reports… they started to become interested. That is, the reports weren’t something completely different, needed only by the analysts. Everyone started to use it. The number of people who looked at it and analyzed network data increased.
In my opinion the introduction of Tableau strongly changed the attitudes of people toward data, toward reports, and now everyone knows where to find data on the network. Where to go, where to look, and what to do.
Tableau: Would you say that Yota has seen a strong ROI from its investments in Tableau?
Natalia: In my opinion the introduction of Tableau paid for itself within the first weeks after we started using it. We don’t do as many projects with outside partners, we don’t pay for the development of reports, we do this with our own hands.
Tableau: How would life be different if you didn’t have Tableau?
Natalia: If we didn’t have Tableau, we would have continued to make huge reports in Excel, we wouldn’t be as unique as we are now. Without Tableau, we wouldn’t be such an innovative and truly dynamic and progressive company, which we actually are.
Tableau: What was your first impression of Tableau?
Natalia: I was the last of the company analysts who tried Tableau! I didn't believe that it was something other than an ordinary biosystem. I didn't want to write SQL and program and so on. And then everything happened… that I was doing everything myself in Tableau.
Tableau: So we won your heart, finally! Anything else you’d like to say?
Natalia: Thank you, Tableau. Working with Tableau completely changed my work, my attitude towards work, things I do. I always liked working with data, now it’s my main job and I love it—a lot.