With Tableau, digital transformation at KeyBank integrates people, processes, and data

KeyBank had diverse data analysis requirements across the company and many employees who interacted with data on a regular basis. “We have data-oriented users that are building reports, pulling data from our databases, and preparing data for use and analytics,” said Sabloff. “But we have a lot of our team that use data as dashboards and reports, and updates of performance across our entire branch infrastructure.”

KeyBank selected Tableau as its data analytics solution. Sabloff added that it met the need for immediacy, accuracy across the business, and ability to connect hundreds of different product performance databases and insights into simplified reporting. “Tableau really shined and allowed us to deliver a solution that was so important and big across our infrastructure, and was seamless for non-data users to access this information.”

It was the largest deployment at KeyBank: nearly 10,000 employees accessed information delivered through Tableau dashboards as a critical component in their day-to-day operations, as well as daily and weekly performance reports.

For example, thousands of branch employees who met with customers daily needed frequent access to data in order to help clients and offer personalized interactions, as well as to help cross-sell and upsell financial products. To support this work, the new system used Tableau dashboards to deliver and distribute incentive compensation infrastructure reports to those branches.

As part of the KeyBank transformation, Sabloff and others made it a priority to bring everyone on board, including technical and non-technical users from all areas of the bank, to help cultivate and elevate a new kind of data-focused culture. As Sabloff explains it, “It's important to put data tools in the hands of the actual people who are making decisions and running the business. This is what our analytics vision at KeyBank comes down to—supporting the needs of people who run the business day-to-day, wherever they might be in terms of technical skills or where they sit within the organization.”

With data enabled and deployed across the organization, along with information security, reliability, and systems running smoothly, the next initiative is to use those rich data sets for analytical purposes. “We need analysts and business leaders to access and drive data to make decisions and to model performance,” said Sabloff. “Ultimately, we'll need to take that data and redeploy it in real time across the rest of the organization.”

The bank also plans to build up new capabilities for the “consumer layer” of the digital experience—and Tableau is at the center of this experience, acting as the data source connector and access enabler. Sabloff pointed out that banking consumers want a unified interface for all of their financial transactions, from their bank accounts and mortgage to their auto loans and credit cards, including accounts that might live at different companies. “If you're not able to consolidate that information and make it easy, you risk losing that customer,” he said. “We want to meet as many of our client needs as we can.”

Another critical evolution will be developing talent and capabilities to operate in this new environment. Sabloff said that the management and leadership team will plan and assess the management structure and transform their organization to meet the moment. “I think it's really important for people to understand the energy behind this transformation, the digital transformation at Key, and how this is not just your average regional bank,” he said. “This is a bank that is committed and understands how much it needs to change, and is committed to investing in the talent and the culture and the infrastructure that's needed to do that.”