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The Challenge
Employees in the automotive division of a database marketing company couldn't readily access customer information in order to make business decisions. Ad-hoc needs for information had to be formally requested and prioritized among the Information Technology department's outstanding project list. "Employees were frustrated," Tom Sellers, Catwalk managing partner noted. "Even the most basic questions were going unanswered."
 
Catwalk Action

The team was there from start to finish, helping the client move from beginning to end including:

  • exploring a variety of software packages that could provide broad-based querying and reporting
  • developing the software request for proposal
  • analyzing vendor responses and interviewing the short list of contenders
  • designing the technical infrastructure
  • creating the budget and project plan for securing hardware and software resources

 
Outcome
Everyone in operations now had a copy of the software on their desktop to create ad-hoc queries when needed. Several key Operations staff were granted "power user" access on views of the database for frequently needed information. They have since created over 200+ standard queries for use within the department. "The end users are so much more effective in meeting their customer's needs," concludes Tom.
 
Final Thoughts
"At first the Operations staff was afraid they'd break the system if they used the tools we created," Tom smiles. The team coached the end-users, walking them through a few examples to get them comfortable with the powerful tool they now had at their disposal. The result? Use has snowballed, with employees now developing custom reports for individual clients. This has become the routine, not the exception.