How AFJ Consulting cut reporting time by 25% - and reclaimed their creative edge

Challenge

A growing consultancy, stuck in a time drain

Ambika McGee had recently launched AFJ Consulting - a boutique market research consultancy focused on delivering high-quality insights to clients who demand precision and speed. But despite her team’s deep expertise, one part of their workflow kept holding them back: reporting.

“It was 2 am, and I was still working on a client deliverable,” Ambika recalls. “The client had a certain view they really liked to see their data in. They wanted the same view of the data replicated 156 times. Every time I recreated it in PowerPoint, it took 36 minutes. That night, I remember thinking: there has to be a better way.”

This wasn’t a one-off. Reporting had become the bottleneck—repetitive, time-consuming, and increasingly frustrating.

“There was no clear pathway through it. It just loomed over every project. And even when we tried to be efficient, it never really was,” she says.

With over 15 years on the supplier side of market research, Ambika knew how easy it is for teams to fall into inefficient patterns - especially when change feels risky.

"Whether you're on the supplier side or the agency side, you can get stuck in a rut. Even though something better exists, your management team or the company might not be willing to take that chance or make the investment."

Solution

An all-in-one platform that scales with creativity and complexity

Ambika turned to Displayr—a platform designed for market researchers who want to do more with less time.

“Instead of manually recreating the same view again and again, we now build it once in Displayr and just drag and drop what we need,” Ambika says. “It’s a massive time-saver.”

What really made the difference was Displayr’s ability to consolidate multiple tools into a single environment. No more switching between SPSS, Excel, and PowerPoint. Everything - data cleaning, analysis, visualization, and reporting—now happens in one place.

“We’ve built templates right into Displayr. They’re polished, professional, and on-brand,” she says. “It used to be basic. Now, we can create reports that actually look really nice.”

With routine tasks streamlined, AFJ Consulting is spending more time on high-value work.

“We now have the time to dig into open-ended responses, which we never had before,” Ambika explains. “It’s helping us deliver richer insights and more strategic recommendations.”

And with Displayr continuously evolving - especially with new AI capabilities - the platform is helping Ambika stay ahead without chasing every new trend.

“As an entrepreneur, I don’t have time to investigate every new thing out there. Displayr keeps improving in the background, so I don’t have to stay on top of what else it can do.”

Results

25% faster reporting - and a lot more room to grow

Since implementing Displayr, AFJ Consulting has cut reporting time by 25% - from 60 hours down to 45 per project. That time saved hasn’t just reduced pressure on deadlines. It’s unlocked new creative capacity and allowed the team to say yes to more work.

“We can’t afford to say no to work. With Displayr, we can take on more projects without compromising quality,” says Ambika. “And we can finally put the finishing touches on reports - the ones that really make clients say wow.”

Ambika sees Displayr not just as a tool for efficiency but as a catalyst for better client experiences.

"We've now got more time to really showcase our artistic side. When people deal with data analysis, there's always going to be a mix of art and science. When you're able to get the scientific part of it - the foundational analysis - done efficiently, then it opens the door for the artistic elements to be showcased." 

The platform has also made a tangible difference in how AFJ Consulting manages the ups and downs of client demand.

"We can easily go from having zero confirmed projects to not even a week later having deadlines that we have to meet - and it can be really stressful," Ambika says. "So we can't afford to have issues with the analysis internally."

"Displayr has put us in a much better position. It's allowed us to really manage client expectations during all the craziness because we know on our side of things - we're good."

It's helping us deliver richer insights and more strategic recommendations.