Dimensional Insight hosted yet another successful Dimensional Insight Users Conference (DIUC22) this past week in our nation’s capital. At this year’s keynote, Dimensional Insight founders Fred Powers and Stan Zanarotti provided us with some insight into where they see both Dimensional Insight and the analytics market as a whole headed in the next few years.
Here are some of this year’s biggest takeaways:
What’s the secret formula?
This year’s conference was named The Discovery Conference, and following this year’s discovery theme, Fred and Stan used aerospace design as an analogy for Dimensional Insight’s success. Turns out, airplanes and data analytics may have more in common than we thought.
Just like planes, the success of any analytics platform can be viewed as individual puzzle pieces coming together to form the whole. These individual pieces can be viewed in terms of:
- Foundational Technology
- Applications
- Competitive Advantage
- Continuous Improvement
- Engineering Simplicity
- Co-Innovation
- Future Roadmap
- Tracking Progress
- Customer Success
But what does all of this mean? Let’s take a look.
Foundational technology
Well, to develop any successful technology, we must first turn to proven and reliable fundamental building blocks. Planes don’t just magically appear all put together—they’re built in a factory from lots of smaller already-established components.
Diver Platform is no different. Using various technology built in-house from the ground up, Dimensional Insight is able to provide a comprehensive enterprise solution that meets all the requirements of our customers. For us, that means seamless integration, unparalleled speed, data trust, automation, and flexible visualization.
Applications
Once the baseline technology has been established, both airplanes and analytics can then be customized to meet more niche demands. Different versions of the same plane might have different paint jobs and interiors depending on their use, such as basic economy vs luxury.
Data analytics is no different. By building individual applications on the foundational technology, Dimensional Insight is able to provide customers with a solution that meets their specific demands.
Whereas healthcare systems might need applications relevant to the emergency department or revenue cycle, alcohol distributors will need applications specific to inventory management or sales programming. These pre-built modifications drastically reduce the costs and implementation times associated with custom solutions.
Competitive advantage
But of course, aerospace and analytics companies don’t exist in a vacuum—there are plenty of other companies trying to do the same thing. So, what makes one company different from the next?
For many years, the Boeing 737 dominated the aerospace industry. However, the emergence of the Airbus A320 marked the end of the 737’s reign. Featuring perfectly circular engine cowlings, a wider cabin, and less aggressive curvature, the A320 took the throne as the king of commercial aircraft. These various features are what we call the competitive advantage.
Just like the A320, the success of Diver Platform can be attributed to Dimensional Insight’s commitment to offering a superior product. At Dimensional Insight, we believe that by supporting the customer and employee, the customer and employee will in turn support us. Our investment over time and continuity of staff has made us an industry leader across various metrics, including back-end integration, native controls, data security, and app performance.
Continuous improvement
Now that we’ve established ourselves as an industry leader, how do we maintain that position? The key is continuous improvement. If we look at the Mars rover, NASA has made huge strides with every new iteration. The original Sojourner, constructed in 1996-1997, relied on solar power and only possessed 3 cameras. The Perseverance however, constructed in 2020, features a whopping 23 cameras and is powered by plutonium, allowing it to function at all times of the day.
Likewise, Diver Platform has come a long way since its inception. In 2004, Dimensional Insight first released our web portal capabilities. Now, Diver possesses a wide range of deployment options, a unified navigation, and an impressive portfolio of supported integrations. Continued success requires continuous innovation.
Engineering simplicity
User success requires effective UX—if your customers are struggling to make the most of their product in an efficient manner, then that reflects on you as a company. Just look at how far modern cockpits have come. Whereas previous space and aircraft featured an endless array of dials, screens, and controls, most updated cockpits have drastically reduced the number of components necessary for pilots to do their job. The less a pilot has to worry about in the cockpit, the more they can focus on their primary responsibilities.
At Dimensional Insight, we use an application framework that emphasizes simplified engineering and ensures that our users don’t have to worry about functions that go beyond their scope. At the bottom level we have KPI data preparations (reserved for DI consultants), then display creation (primarily IT), QVs and KPIs (power users), and finally shortcuts at the top, which help end users access the specific information they need without having to jump through hoops.
Just recently we announced the release of “My Library,” which features a host of self-service capabilities to help users access what’s most important to them, save time, increase adoption, and improve the user experience.
Co-innovation
A huge part of a company’s success is built upon its relationships with other businesses. In our supply-chain, many delivery and shipping companies rely on their relationships with aircraft companies to get freight from point A to point B. Take for example FedEx, which relies on the Cessna Grand Caravan for more than 1/3 of its entire fleet. Now, FedEx is working with Cessna once again to update its fleet with Cessna’s SkyCouriers.
In the analytics industry, we at Dimensional Insight have set ourselves apart by placing a special emphasis on customer success. Not only do we work together to address our customers’ current needs, but we also continue to work alongside them to develop a roadmap for the future. We’re in it for the long haul, and invest heavily in our customer relationships to provide them with continued success over time.
Future roadmap
Both aerospace and analytic companies have to look ahead and plan for the future if they’re to remain sustainable. Since the first commercial airlines took off the runway, the aerospace industry has seen nonstop innovation as businesses sought to meet the demands of the future.
At Dimensional Insight, we define our roadmap based on customer industry requirements, market direction, and our guiding principles. As part of our commitment to continuously providing our customers with a world-class product, we’ve recently released Diver Platform 7.2, featuring major improvements across the entire solution. It also marks the release of the new “My Library” option.
Tracking progress
You can’t improve your product if you don’t know what’s working and what’s not. Tracking progress is crucial for any business hoping to implement any meaningful changes. Product-as-a-service refers to when both a product and follow-up services are sold as a complete package. Essentially, the model focus on the desired outcome or result as opposed to just the product itself. In aerospace, most equipment has some form of monitoring system that provides feedback on how the device is functioning (e.g. fuel flow, oil pressure, temperature, etc.).
In analytics, one of the key metrics related to how the product is being used is its rate of adoption. More specifically, Diver Platform allows for usage tracking to determine its penetration within the business. With a better understanding of user personas, we can deliver better content and in the right format. According to the data, executive use is one of the greatest drivers for increased adoption across the remainder of the organization.
Customer Success
We alluded to this earlier, but a business is only successful if its customers are too. Driving results for our clients has always been, and will continue to be, our primary objective at Dimensional Insight.
So what exactly does success with business intelligence look like? For us, this means that:
- Users are satisfied
- They trust the data
- They are actively using the system
- There is adoption throughout the enterprise
- You are getting a return on your investment
- Better decision making
- Improved operational efficiency
- Growth in revenue
- Competitive advantage
Final remarks
Dimensional Insight’s guiding vision has always been to provide expert data integration and to be a trusted partner by keeping our promises and developing unparalleled industry expertise. Our commitment to the success of our customers is encapsulated by our multiple awards for industry excellence:
- Scored 4.5 out of 5 stars in the 2021 Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms Report
- Voted by our customers as an overall industry leader in the Dresner Advisory Services 2022 Industry Excellence Awards
- Voted as 8 time Best in KLAS winner from 2010 to 2021
Once again, we’d like to thank everybody who helped make this DIUC possible and look forward to seeing you next year.
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