ZS is a management consulting firm that helps organizations improve results with data analysis across a range of industries from healthcare to software.

Kristin Zaslavsky is the Demand Center Manager heading up the marketing communications (MarCom) team and spearheading campaigns. In her role, Kristin uses marketing automation tools (MAT), customer relationship tools (CRM), and a keen awareness of client satisfaction to deliver the best results possible.

Kristin’s primary role is to provide guidance to the marketing team and help the group understand the impact of the campaigns they run. Speed is of the essence—the sooner the team can fully understand the data, the quicker they can course-correct and adjust their marketing efforts.

“When looking at learning and implementing a new tool like Power BI, we definitely had the right brains in the room but not the time or resources to really sit down, dig into the tool, and understand best practices,” said Kristin. “We were spending a lot of time going through multiple rounds of revisions to experiment and see what was going to work best for us.”

Wrestling back control of the marketing team’s time was paramount to Kristin. To stay one step ahead of the competition, Kristin was driven to seek new tools and systems that would give her team more focus and allow them to make a bigger impact.

Power BI was the best path forward, but Kristin needed someone to help guide the way with dashboards and reporting improvements.

Helping an Underwater Team Take Control of Data

Prior to the partnership with Collectiv, Kristin and the marketing team at ZS faced a difficult decision—either go all in and embrace Power BI or risk drowning in marketing data.

With Power BI in place, the ZS team would finally be able to avoid the continuation of tedious and time-consuming processes. Power BI would also provide transparency for stakeholders and overhaul existing workflows.

By streamlining existing processes for creating reports, Kristin’s team could save valuable time that could be better spent elsewhere. While the marketing team knew how to get to grips with a new Power BI tool, they lacked the time and resources to learn it from the inside out.

“We had a lot of really great team members who were also incredibly underwater,” said Kristin. “Bringing in Collectiv’s team of experts allowed us to focus on what our team needed and also help us increase Power BI adoption.”

This MarCom Team Sees a Big Transformation

For Kristin and her team, a roadmap for sustained success with Power BI was essential for pushing forward without cutting corners. Since marketing is so complex and multi-faceted, it was important to rule out certain paths and avoid heading towards a dead end.

The MarCom team would conduct A/B testing and create reports to indicate the success of various marketing campaigns. Yet, these processes can be notoriously time-consuming.

With Collectiv on hand to provide personalized insights into Power BI applications in marketing, Kristin noted the following improvements:

• Shortened timelines for reports and during launch.
• Insights into which reports and visuals work best in different areas.
• Best practices for driving user adoption and creating accurate reports.
• Ways to avoid going over familiar ground and spending unnecessary time on edits.

In more concrete terms, the MarCom team can now access dashboards quickly and fulfill their duties without getting bogged down in the minutiae. Collectiv helped identify and clear obstructions that would prevent the team from working as efficiently as possible and heading down the right path with confidence.

“We have certain teams that are doing 40% of the total work they were using to run reports—especially in our paid social teams. Now they can take that time and focus on understanding the impact of the work that they’re doing,” said Kristin. “It’s been a really big win for us, and that wouldn’t have been possible without Collectiv.”

Aside from Power BI, the marketing team gained a better understanding of how to manage their large data load. For instance, they worked at modeling data using best data governance practices and explored the benefits of using data warehouses, such as Azure and other systems.

Progress didn’t go unnoticed either. Kristin and the team received glowing feedback from the senior leadership team in recognition of their major transformation.

“We’ve been able to use Collectiv as a partner so that we can make this project shine from end to end,” said Kristin.

Using CaaS to Make Projects Shine From End to End

For Kristin and her marketing team, the goal of the Collectiv partnership was to refine processes and ultimately save time and resources. As such, they didn’t need a complete overhaul to the way they worked, simply some guidance on shortcuts they could take without sacrificing quality.

Collectiv’s CaaS (Consulting as a Service) provided the team with access to consultation on-demand across various issues. Using this flexible support model, Kristin and her team built a better understanding of how to develop feedback loops to elicit and use feedback, while improving project management and timelines for end-to-end project success.

“I’ve worked with a lot of different consultants on a lot of different projects. What makes Collectiv stand out is they bring a human aspect. They know us by name and work very closely with our team,” said Kristin.

“They can translate things into real-world experiences to easily guide our techy and non-techy team members through the process in order to get the best results possible.”

Having expert guidance on hand allowed the ZS MarCom team to look to the future as they were no longer buried in the minutiae of labor-intensive data processes. This means Kristin could finally stop focusing on the rearview mirror and instead use data to inform future decisions that would positively impact the business.

“We no longer need to do ad hoc reporting where we’re reinventing the wheel every time. Instead, we have everything in a very easy-to-use fashion and we’ve reduced the amount of time people are spending on reporting drastically.”

From feeling overwhelmed with data to managing it confidently with Power BI, Kristin and her marketing team were able to channel their resources on what mattered most and improve their results.

Adjusting to a new Power BI tool is a difficult endeavor, yet with the right tools and support, it’s a future worth discovering.

If your team needs immediate expert guidance, Collectiv’s Consulting as Service (CaaS) engagement is a great place to start. We can get a consultant started on your request within 24 hours. Reach out and tell us where you need support.