Aker, a leading precision agriculture company supporting agriculture retailers and chemical suppliers, plays a crucial role in providing field insights to drive the successful growth of crops across the United States. By capturing and analyzing field knowledge above and below the canopy using state-of-the-art drones, Aker provides critical insights to their clients to maximize plant health and yield.

Aker’s client value journey starts with field collection and raw data from its proprietary ML/AI-enabled drones. Analyzing and presenting this substantial amount of data to clients was a recurring challenge for Agronomy Lead Alyssa Cho.

While Aker has APIs and a digital visualization platform for this data, all exports and analysis of derived results were delivered via static PDF reports and cumbersome CSV files, leaving Aker clients confused and underwhelmed.

Alyssa and her team spent countless hours trying to design reports in Tableau to visualize the data and she knew this solution wasn’t scalable—especially with Aker’s client base growing by the day. Alyssa needed a data analytics solution that could meet Aker’s evolving needs.

Collectiv was ready to take on the challenge with Power BI.

A GIS (Geographic Information System) Dashboard in Two Weeks

Aker needed much more than your average data visualization. Since Aker works with lots of geospatial data, customer reports go beyond charts and graphs to include maps and unique data manipulation to cover extended timelines.

“We had a very short window before plants began to grow, and we had to be ready to collect data and report on that data. I needed a solution to be done quickly,” Alyssa shared.

To help Alyssa achieve rapid progress with her pressing data needs, Collectiv recommended the Sprint Start Proof of Concept Program. For the proof of concept, Collectiv was tasked to create a customizable data visualization that Aker could start using right away. Power BI was the perfect tool for the job.

The Collectiv team met with Alyssa to deeply understand her data, the crucial role Aker plays for their clients, and what reporting capabilities would make a difference for her organization. Alyssa was floored when the Collectiv team delivered her customized GIS (Geographic Information System) dashboard in two weeks.

“We worked with Collectiv because they were able to hit the ground running,” said Alyssa. “As soon as I proposed what I wanted to accomplish, they just did it. Working with them wasn’t a hard choice to make. I didn’t need to shop around for someone else because they were able to execute immediately on what we were asking for.”

Rapid Decision-Making for Aker and Their Customers

To create a scalable solution that met Alyssa’s needs, Collectiv combined strategy and agility to make the proof of concept a fully functional tool Alyssa and her clients could use. This type of flexible and specialized partnership is a defining characteristic of a super boutique consulting firm like Collectiv.

“Collectiv makes us feel like a valued partner in that they hear what we are saying. They listen to what we need and they ensure that the work they do helps us achieve those goals,” Alyssa said.

Collectiv created a user-friendly Power BI dashboard that both Alyssa and her customers could use to better visualize and manipulate data for rapid decision-making. With these new reporting capabilities, Alyssa and her entire team are creating compelling presentations and reports for clients.

Now customers are visually guided through the process, which gives them a better understanding of how they can use data in their workflow. Clients are also able to reference their own dashboards and review data on their own time.

The Positive Impact on Day-to-Day Operations

All of these new Power BI capabilities aren’t only benefitting Aker’s customers. Across the organization, business units are experiencing benefits with a variety of use cases.

“Collectiv has impacted our day-to-day operations at Aker by freeing up our time to think more critically, rather than spending time crunching numbers and putting together tables and figures and maps for our customers,” said Alyssa.

Automated reporting saves the data analytics team multiple hours every week. Dashboards and reports make it easy for sales to demonstrate the value Aker can deliver to prospective clients. The product team is using these insights to inform new products and offerings as well.

“We threw a big curveball at Collectiv and we challenged them to think differently about our data. I would recommend Collectiv to any of my colleagues in the agricultural industry because they are efficient and they truly listen to your needs.”

The Collectiv Sprint Start Proof of Concept Program is here to help you rapidly build out the Power BI solution your enterprise needs to thrive. If you want to see more of what Power BI can offer long-term, try our Power BI Visioning Program to create a plan for better data analysis and management across your enterprise.