Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/594816
40 SMT Magazine • November 2015 they have full access from the trial and, as you're saying, the reports are meaningful. of the people that you've given the 30-day demos to, have they all converted to customers? Moradkhan: I think all but one, so we're at over a 90% rate. Once people see this with their own data, a couple of things happen. Right from the demo, I will tell you that they're very impressed with what the output is. They're still trying to justify the investment in terms of the cost, be- cause they start thinking of us as some Cadillac/ Mercedes solution to the problem they're trying to solve. In the beginning, they may even think about it as a big luxury item. Here is the key point: we are the cost lead- er first, because you are spending time, money and resources in transforming your unfiltered data into actionable business intelligence. A lot of times this cost is hidden, because you may not actually have a particular person employed to only do that. Maybe the director of materials happens to be strong in SQL, so you've asked them to write some queries over here. Then you've got Joe over in finance that is really good at Excel, so every week he has to put these Excel reports together. What happens is that once people start think- ing about how they really spend money in terms of employee costs, etc., transforming data into actionable business intelligence becomes a no- brainer. That's why we have such a big success rate once the trial happens, because it goes from thinking of it in terms of a luxury good to, "I'm going to get a real, leading-edge solution and, at the same time, I'm going to spend less money." Matties: the price point of $1,500 a month seems entirely reasonable, even all the way up to the $5,000. Moradkhan: I think we have a big "A-ha!" mo- ment with the customers when they start con- verting and comparing that number to a full- time equivalent, because any company of de- cent size—once they analyze it—will be able to see they have at least one full-time equivalent. It's not one person, but it is pieces of different people involved in converting data into action- able business intelligence. Matties: it's not just the cost of the time, but it's also the distraction that it brings to them. that's lost opportunity as well. Moradkhan: Absolutely. All kinds of other dys- functions happen when you don't really have a strategy about this, which is so important to your business. Matties: A data strategy. Moradkhan: Exactly, a data strategy. Really, you need that. You need to be thinking, "Hey, I want to know what's going on with my busi- ness at a surgical level." If you don't have that strategy, you may have situations where a great two-dimensional report is produced three weeks in a row, but then the fourth week, the people are busy so it doesn't get produced. Maybe that continuity of always looking at the same report on a weekly/monthly basis to make sure that you're on track causes you to lose that momen- tum, whereas with data collection software, it's always available. We also talk about a single version of the truth. When you let people create reports them- selves, a lot of times you're spending time rec- onciling them. They say, "Mine says this." "Well, how did you create yours?" "Well, I did it this way or I looked at it this way." There's a standardization that you need to have—really leading-edge or first-class management process- ImProvING ProDUCTIoN eFFICIeNCIeS WITH beTTer DATA STrATeGIeS FeaTure INTervIeW " What happens is that once people start thinking about how they really spend money in terms of employee costs, etc., transforming data into actionable business intelligence becomes a no-brainer. "