Executive Decisions Were Held Back by Data Access Gaps
Veronica Beard was experiencing the executive decision support challenge that limits many organizations where the speed of executive decision making can have a material impact on the business. The reasons for the executive decision support gaps at Veronica Beard were due to the following reasons:
- BI tools are complicated to learn and use for an exec: BI tools represent a heavy learning curve, that requires busy executives to make time to learn and onboard
- Important questions land up taking the most time: Important questions for which the insight is not instantly available lead to these questions cascading down their orgs till it reaches the data team or the department’s analyst team —creating days of delay for time-sensitive decisions.
- Many insights have a half life of minutes in the work day of an exec: Executives need insights while traveling to stores, during board meetings, in a vendor negotiation or making real-time strategic decisions. These situations rarely, if ever, occur at their desks and without a sense of urgency.
For a seasonal business managing inventory across wholesale, retail, and e-commerce channels, these delays in decision making have substantive consequences. When dress inventory needs to move in spring and different styles perform in fall and winter, even brief delays can mean missing critical revenue windows.
Max recognized the opportunity: "Your most senior business stakeholders are very data driven and constantly have questions that hold the keys to improving business performance. They don't have the bandwidth to learn complex tools and the tools may not contain all the answers to their questions. If we overcome this constraint, then it could turn into a competitive advantage given the importance of speed in making these decisions".
Executive Intelligence, Powered by Iris
Veronica Beard decided to implement Iris as their executive intelligence platform, specifically to serve C-level leaders with conversational exploration of accurate business insights. The strategic implementation approach that Veronica Beard is taking is supported very well by Iris.
- Executive-First Deployment: The business user-friendly UX of Iris allows for a deployment model that starts with company leadership, then rolls down to department heads reporting to them.
- Delivering Industry-Aware Insights: Iris understands fashion and retail industry realities such as the importance of retail calendar comparisons, all the critical ratios and their relevance to the business. It embodies this understanding in generating insights and in answering user questions.
- Accessing Insights on the go: The full power of Iris is accessible from executives' mobile phones, enabling insights "when they're in the taxi" before visiting stores or during a strategic planning session.
As an early adopter of Iris, Max has worked closely with the iris team and provided guidance on retail-specific nuances. "What's been great for us is that the iris team has been outstanding at listening and evolving the product with a complete focus on the customer. "This has led to Iris becoming an expert at the nuances of our industry in a way that other generic text to SQL products cannot easily match," Max explains.
Actionable Insights Delivered When Decisions Strike
- It’s incredibly fast! What used to take two to three days now takes less than a minute, a 1,000x improvement in speed to insight.
- The experience feels like texting your Chief of Staff. Iris understands vague questions, industry jargon, and shorthand, responding with clear, precise insights every time. It’s built for how executives actually talk and think.
- It delivers deeply insightful and actionable guidance. Since Iris understands fashion industry nuances, from retail calendar comparisons to the importance of key performance indicators and ratios, it has been able to provide insights that are grounded in relevant context.
For this high-end fashion retailer, Iris is the always-on Strategy Analyst for Executive Decision support.
