How MDI used Displayr to double their business without adding headcount

Challenge

Finding a faster way to manipulate data for multiple markets

As a market researcher with decades of experience, Ron Gailey knows his way around data. His company, MDI (Mobile Digital Insights) conducts several tracking studies across different LATAM markets, which need to be updated with new data each month.

But Ron was frustrated with the tools at his disposal: SPSS, Excel, and PowerPoint.

He had to copy and paste data several times to move it from SPSS, to Excel, to PowerPoint. Each additional touchpoint added the possibility for human error.

“When you work with SPSS, you’re manipulating the data over and over again,” he says. “One of the biggest dangers when you’re doing an analysis is adding an error when you manipulate the data.”

On top of that, the process in place was manual and slow. Updating the LATAM tracking studies each month required weeks of attention from a senior analyst, and building each PowerPoint presentation took hours.

We could get the work done, but with SPSS, everything takes a very long time.

These time and labor-intensive processes also limited the types of advanced analysis MDI could offer their clients.

“I would have to tell clients we couldn’t offer that kind of work,” Ron remembers. Not because we couldn't do it, but because it was so time-consuming.”

His team was maxed out: they had the ability to do more in-depth analysis, but they didn’t have the time.

With better tools at his disposal, Ron would be able to solve several problems at once: he could save time, cut out the manual processes that risked introducing errors into his data and update his tracking studies automatically, all without needing to add headcount to his team.

Solution

An all-in-one analysis and reporting tool that eliminates multiple data manipulations

When Ron first tried Displayr, he saw the improvement over his previous tools right away.

“I was working on a challenging report, and even while I was still learning to use Displayr, the project was many times easier than it ever would have been with SPSS,” he says.

With Displayr, he could create a template for his tracking studies and replicate it across several markets, which sped up the analysis considerably.

“It allowed us to analyze the data faster because we didn’t have to start all over again with each new section,” Ron says. “Once we had what we wanted, we could replicate it for each question.”

Displayr fully connects the data, analysis, and reports, completely removing the need to copy and paste. This eliminated the risk of input errors and streamlined the analysis process.

“With Displayr, we take that risk of human error out of it,” Ron says. “We can create tables that we immediately turn into charts without having to copy and paste them, which means higher-quality data.”

Then, the data is automatically connected to the visualizations and interactive dashboards.

“The data set automatically goes into the dashboards that we created, and the process is seamless,” Ron says. “Before, we had to take the data, process it, put it into the format that we needed, and then create the visuals. Being able to do all of that automatically was a big shift.”

Having Displayr has also allowed Ron and his team to do more advanced analysis than they were able to offer their clients before, including segmentation, latent class analysis, and pricing elasticity studies.

“Displayr has allowed me to really win the hearts of clients,” Ron says. “Sometimes, I’ll even drop segmentation into studies that don’t require it, because it’s so easy to do. That was much too time-consuming and difficult to do previously.”

Result

2x more business and 75% analysis and reporting time saved

Today, having Displayr saves MDI time at every step of the analysis and reporting process. Building a chart in Excel and PowerPoint used to take Ron an hour—now, he can create one in around 3 minutes.

Displayr makes the analysis process faster from beginning to end: from cleaning the data, creating a functioning database, performing what-if analysis, creating visuals and dashboards, and finally answering additional client requests, each step only requires a fraction of the time it took before.

Ron estimates that he saves at least 75% of the time he used to spend manual processing and updating data.

“Displayr gives us the ability to do the work in about a quarter of the time it used to take,” Ron says. “All the way through, it makes every step of the process more efficient.”

The biggest difference Displayr has made is for MDI’s tracking studies. What used to require two weeks of work from a senior analyst each month can now be updated in a few hours.

“Now, we can take the data directly as it comes in and add it to the dashboards,” Ron says. “With only a couple of hours of work, we can have the next month processed and ready to go.”

MDI has now created dashboards for 12 out of the 14 countries in his LATAM tracking study, with plans to add the final two soon.

“Our clients love them,” Ron says. “They love being able to look at the data in different ways and understand the results immediately.”

Perhaps most importantly, using Displayr has helped MDI grow: they’ve been able to double their business, without adding any headcount to their team.

“With the time we save, we have doubled our business since we started working with Displayr,” Ron says.

We’re able to handle twice as much work as before, with the same amount of people.