>>Yeah, yeah. >>Welcome back, everyone. And let's get ready for session number two, which is all around picking the right use cases. We're going to take a look at how to make the most of your data driven journey through the lens of some instructive customer examples. So today we're joined by thought squads David Copay, who is a director of business value consulting like Daniel, who's a customer success manager and then engagement manager. Andrea Frisk, who not so long ago was actually a product manager. Canadian Tire, who are one of our customers. And she was responsible for the thoughts. What implementation? So we figured Who better to get involved? But yeah, let's Let's take it away, David. >>Thanks, Gina. Welcome, everybody. And Andrea Blake looking forward to this session with you. A zoo. We all know preparation early is key to success on Duin. Any project having the right team on sponsorship Thio, build and deploy. Ah, use case is critical being focused on three outcome that you have in mind both the business deliverables and then also the success criteria of how you're going to manage, uh, manage and define success. When you get there, Eyes really critical to to set you up in the right direction initially. So, Andrea, as as we mentioned, uh, you came from an organization that quite several use cases on thoughts about. So maybe you can talk us through some of those preparation steps that, yeah, that you went through and and share some insights on how folks can come prepare appropriately. >>Eso having the right team members makes such a difference. Executive support really helped the Canadian tire adoption spread. It gave the project presence and clout in leadership meetings and helped to drive change from the top down. We had clear goals and success criteria from our executive that we used to shape the go forward plan with training and frame the initial use case roadmap. One of the other key benefits over executive sponsor was that the reporting team for our initial use case rolled up by underhand. So there was a very clear directive for a rapid phase out of the old tools once thought Spot supported the same data story. And this is key because as you start to roll through use cases, you wanna realize the value. And if you're still executing the old the same time as the new. That's not gonna happen. As we expanded into areas where we were unfamiliar with the data in business utilization, we relied on the data experts and and users to inform what success would look like in the new use cases. We learned early on that those who got volunteer old and helping didn't always become the champions. That would help you drive value from the use case. Using the thoughts about it meant tables. We started to seek out users who are consistently logging in after an initial training, indicating their curiosity and appetite to learn more. We also looked for activities outside of just pin board views toe identify users that had the potential to build and guide new users as subject matter experts, not just in a data but in thought spot. This helps us find the right people to cultivate who were already excited about the potential of thought spot and could help us champion a use case. >>That's really helpful, great, great insight for someone who's been there and done that. Blake is as a customer success manager. Obviously, you approach many of the same situations, anything you'd like to add that >>I still along with the right team. My first question with any use cases. Why Why are we doing this? You've gathered all this data and now we want to use it. But But what for? When you get that initial response on Why this use case? Don't stop there. Keep asking Why keep digging? Keep digging. Keep digging. So what you're essentially trying to get at is what does the decision is that we will be made or potentially be made because of this use case. For example, let's say that we're looking at an expenses use case. What will be done with the insides gathered with this use case? Are those insights going? Thio change the expense approval process Now, Once you have that, why defined now it becomes a lot easier to define the success criteria. Success criteria they use. Face can sometimes be difficult to truly defined. But when you understand why it becomes much easier, so now you can document that success criteria. And the hard part at that point is to actually track that success over time, track the success of the use case, which is something that is easily miss but It's something that is incredibly useful to the overall initiative. >>Right measure. Measure the outcomes. You can't manage what you what? You can't what you don't measure right? As the old adage goes, and you know it's part of the business consulting team. That's really where we come in. Is helping customers really fundamentally define? How are we going to measure a success? Aziz. We move forward. Andi, I think you know, I think we've alluded to this a little bit in terms of that sort of ongoing nature of This is, you know, after the title of the session, eyes choosing the right news cases in the plural right? So it's very important to remember that this is not a single point in time event that happens once. This is a constant framework or process, because most organizations will find that there's many use cases, potentially dozens of use cases that thoughts what could be used for, and clearly you can't move forward with all of them. At the same time, eso. Another thing that our team helps customers walk through is what's the impact, the potential value, other particular use case. You know, you, Blake, you mentioned some of those outcomes, is it? Changing the expense processes it around? Reducing customer churn is an increasing speed toe insight and speak the market on defining those measurable outcomes that define the vertical axis here. The strategic importance off that use case. Um, but that's not the only dimension that you're gonna look at the East to deploy factors into that you could have the most valuable use case ever. But if it's going to take you to three years to get it implemented for various reasons, you're not really gonna start with that one, right? So the combination of east to deploy, aligned with the strategic importance or business value really gives you that road map of where to focus to prioritize on use cases. Eso again, Andrea, you've been through this, um, in your prior time at Canadian time. Maybe you can share some thoughts on how you approach that. >>Yeah. So our initial use case was a great launching platform because the merchandizing team had a huge amount across full engagement. So once we had the merchants on board, we started to plan or use case roadmap looking for other areas, and departments were thought spot had already started to spread by word of mouth and we where we felt there was a high strategic importance. As we started to scope these areas, the ease of deployment started to get more complicated. We struggled to get the right people engaged and didn't always have the top down support for resources in the new use case area. We wanted to maintain momentum with the adoption, but it was starting to feel like we were stalling out on the freeway. Then the strategic marketing team reached out and was really excited about getting into thought spot. This was an underserved team where when it came to data, they always had someone else running it for them, and they'd have to request reports and get the information in. Um, and our initial roadmap focused on the biggest impact areas where we could get the most users, and this team was not on the radar. But when we started to engage with them, we realized that this was gonna be an easy deployment. We already had the data and thought spot to support their needs, and it turned into such a great win because as a marketing team, they were so thrilled to have thought spot and to get the data when they needed it and wanted it. They continued to spread the word and let everyone know. But it also gave the project team a quick win to put some gas in the tank and keep us moving. So you want to plan your use case trajectory, but you also need to be willing to adapt to keep the momentum going. >>Yeah, no, that's a That's a really great point. So So Blake is a customer success manager. I'm sure you lived through some integration of this all the time. So any anything you wanted to add that >>Yes. So to Andrew's point, continuous delivery is key for technical folks out there were talking and agile methodology mindset versus a waterfall. So to show value, there's many different factors that air at play. You need to look at the overall business initiatives. We need to look at financial considerations. We need to look at different career objectives and also resource limitations. So when you start thinking about all those different factors, this becomes a mixture of art and science. So, for example, at the beginning of a project when thought spot is has just been purchased or whatever tool has just been purchased. You want to show immediate value to justify that purchase. So in order to show immediate value, you might want to look at a project or a use case that is tightly aligned to a business objective. Therefore, it shows value, and it has data that is ready to go without many different transformations. But as you move forward, you have to come up with a plan that is going to mix together these difficult use cases with the easier use cases and high business values cases versus the lower. So in order to do that, my most successful customers are evaluating those different business factors and putting those into place with an overall use case development plan. >>Really good feedback. That's great. Thank you. Thanks, Blake. Um, I think s a little bit of a reality check here. Right. So I think we all recognize that any technology implementation, um, is gonna have her bumps in the road. It's not gonna be smooth sailing all along the way. You know, we talk about people, process and technology. The technology wrote wrote roadblocks can be infrastructure related there could be some of the data quality issues that you're alluding to there. Like Onda, people in process fall into the sort of the cultural, uh, cultural cultural side of it. Blake, maybe you can spend a couple minutes going through. What? What if some of those bigger roadblocks that people may face on that, um, technical side on how they could both prepare for them and then address them as they come along? >>Yeah. So the most intimidating part of any business intelligence or analytics initiative is that it's going to put the data directly into the hands of the business users. And this is especially true with ocelot. So why this is intimidating is because it's going toe, lay bare and expose any data issues that exist. So this is going to lead to the most common objective that I hear to starting. Any new use case or any FBI initiative overall, which is our data isn't ready. And essentially that is fear of failure. So when data isn't ready and companies aren't ready to start these projects, what happens is to get around those data issues. There's a lot of patchwork that's happening, you know, this patchwork is necessary just to keep the wheels in motion just to keep things going. So what I mean by the patchwork is extracting the data from a source doing some manual manipulation, doing some manipulation directly within the within the database in order to satisfy those business users request. So this keeps things going, but it's not addressing the key issues that are in place now. While it's intimidating to start these initiatives, the beauty of starting these B I initiatives is it's going to force your company to address and fix these issues. And this, to me, is somewhere where thoughts what is a gigantic benefit? It's not something that we talk about necessarily or market, but thought Spot is really good at helping fix these data issues. And I say this for two reasons. One his data quality. So, with thoughts about you can run, searches directly against your most granular level data and find where those data issues exist, and now, especially with embrace, you're running it directly against the source. So thats what is going to really help you figure out those data quality issues. So as you develop a use case, we can uncover those data quality issues and address them accordingly. And second is data governance. So especially again with embrace and our cloud, our cloud structure is you are going to be bringing Companies are going to be bringing data sources from all over the place all into one source and into one logical view. And so traditionally, the problem with that is that your data and source a might be the theoretically the same data and source B. But the numbers are different. And so you have different versions of the truth. So what thoughts about helps you do is when you bring those sources together. Now you're gonna identify those issues, and now you're gonna be forced to address them. You're gonna be forced to address naming convention issues, business logic issues, which business logic translates to the technical logic toe transform that data and then also security and access. Who was actually able to see this data across these different data sources. So overall, the biggest objective eye here is our data isn't ready. But I challenge that. And I say that by taking on this initiative with thought spot, you were going to be directly addressing that issue and thoughts. What's going to help you fix it? >>Yeah, that's Ah, I'd love that observation that, you know, data quality issues. They're not gonna go away by themselves. And if thoughts, thoughts what could be part of the solution, then even better. So that's a That's a really great observation. Eso Andrea, looking at the sort of the cultural side of things the people in process, Um, what are some of the challenges that you've seen there that folks in the audience could that could learn from? >>Yeah. So think about the last time you learned a new system or tool. How long did it take you to get adjusted and get the performance you wanted from it? Maybe you hit the ground running, but maybe you still feel like you're not quite getting the most out of it. Everyone deals with change differently, and sometimes we get stuck in the change curve and never fully adapt. Companies air no different. Ah, lot of the roadblocks you may face are not only from individual struggling to get on board, but can be the result of an organizational culture that may not be used to change or managing it. Their external impacts on how we accept change such as Was there a clear message about the upcoming changes and impacts? Was there a communication channel for questions and concerns? Did individuals feel like their input was sought after and valued? Where there are multiple mediums, toe learn from was their time to learn? Organizational change is hard. And if there isn't a culture that allocates time and resources to training, then realizing success is gonna be an uphill battle. It will be harder to move people forward if they don't have the time to get comfortable and feel acclimated to the new way of doing things. Without the training and change support from the organization, you'll end up running the old and the new simultaneously, which we talked about not in our live supporting users, in both eyes going to negate that value. There were times at Canadian Tire where we really struggled to get key stakeholders engaged or to get leadership by it on the time of the resources that we're gonna be needed and committed Thio to make a use case successful. So gauging where people and the organization are in the change curve is the first step in moving them along the path towards acceptance and integration. So you'll wanna have an action plan to address the concerns and resistance and a way to solicit and channel feedback. >>Yeah, that's Zo great feedback. And I particularly like what you talked about sort of the old and the new because, you know, we've talked about success and measurement on value quite a bit in this session, and ultimately that's that's the goal, right? Is to live a Value s o. This is a framework that we found really helpful visit. Value Team is defining those success criteria really actually falls into two categories on the right hand side. Better decisions. Um, that's ultimately what you're looking to drive with thoughts about right. You're looking to get newer inside faster to be able to drive action and outcomes based on decisions that do. Maybe we're using your gut for previously on the words under that heading. They're going to change by organizations. So you know, those don't get too caught up on those, but it's really around defining, you know, one. Are those better decisions that you're looking to drive, Who what's the persona is gonna be making them one of their actually looking to accomplish when inside. So they're looking to get one of what are the actions they're going to take on those insights? And then how do we measure Thean pact of those actions that then provides us with the the foundation of a business case in our I, um, in parallel to that, it's important to remember that this use case is not just operating in a vacuum, right? Every organization has a Siri's off strategic transformational initiatives move to the cloud democratized data, etcetera. And to the extent that you can tie particular use cases into those key strategic initiatives, really elevates the importance off that use case outside of its own unique business case. In our calculation on Bazzaz several purposes, right, it raises the visibility project. It raises the visibility of the person championing project on. Do you know reality here is that every idea organization has tons of projects have taken invest in, but the ones they're gonna be more likely to invest in other ones that are tied to those strategic initiatives. So it increases the likelihood of getting the support and funding that you need to drive this forward um, that's really around defining the success success criteria upfront. Um, and >>what >>we find is a lot of organizations do that pretty well, and they've got a solid, really solid business case to move forward. But then over time, they kind of forget about that on. Do you know, a year down the line two years down the line, Maybe even, you know, three months, six months down the line. Maybe people have rotated through the business. People have come and gone, and you almost forget the benefit that you're driving, right? And so it's really important to not do that and keep an eye on and track Onda, look back and analyze and realize the value that use cases have driven on. Obviously, the structure of that and what you measure is gonna very significantly by escape. But it's really important there Thio to make sure that you're counting your success and measuring your success. Um, Andrea, I don't any any thoughts on that from from your past experience. >>Yeah, um, success will be different For each use case, 1 may be focused on reducing the time to insights in a fast competitive market, while another may be driven by a need to increase data fluency to reduce risk. The weighting of each of these criterias will shift and and the value perception should as well. Um, but one thing that we don't want to forget is to share your personal successes. So be proud of the work that you've done in the value it's created. Um, if you're a user who has taken advantage of thought spot and managed to grab a competitive edge by having faster in depth access to data, share that in your business reviews. If you're managing the adoption at your company, share your use case winds and user adoption stories. Your customer success team is here to help you articulate the value and leverage the great work being done in and because of thought spot. >>Yeah, long story short here. This benefits everybody. This is something that's easily overlooked and something that it ZZ not to do this to track adoption to define the r o I, but it benefits those benefits. Start spot benefits of customers. Everybody wins. When we do this, >>that's Ah, that's a great point. So, um, so if we talk about you know, as we wrap the session up. You know what can what can folks in the audience dio right now to start making some of this stuff happened? You know, you're Blake again, coming back to you in customer success. How have you and your role help customers take that next step and start executing on some of the things that we've talked about? >>Yeah. So to start off with, I would just say for each use case as much as possible, define the why and to find the success criteria. Just start off with those two, those two elements and over time that that process we'll get more and more refined and our goal within the CSCE or within within thoughts. But overall, not just the C s order is to enable all of our all of our customers to be able to do all these things on their own. And to be a successful, it's possible to be able to pick the right use cases to be able to execute those right use cases as effectively as possible. So we are here to help with that. CS is here to help with that. Your account executives here to help with that, we have use case workshops. We have our professional services team that can get in and help develop use cases. So lots of options available in goal. We all mutually benefit when we try to track towards thes best possible use cases. >>All right, that we're here to help. That's Ah, that's a great way. Thio, wrap up the session there. Thanks, Blake. For all of your thoughts and Andrea to hope everyone in the audience got some valuable insights here on how to choose the right news case and be successful with thoughts about, um, with that being, I'll hand it back over to you. >>Amazing. That was an awesome session. Thank you so much, guys. So our third session is up next, and we're going to be going Global s. Oh, hang on tight as we explore best practices from the extended ecosystem of cloud based analytics. >>Yeah,