Real-time dashboards enable data analytics firm Telefónica Tech to be agile and transparent with its team members
With the right culture in place, an organisation will discover that its processes and digital transformation ambitions are easier to achieve. Telefónica Tech has always placed people first and foremost in the business, and we have seen the benefits of this approach. Founded in 2006, Telefónica Tech has, from the very beginning, strived to have clear communications with its team members, partners and customers.
At Telefónica Tech, we apply the same technologies and methods to how we run our finance operations as we would a client. Using cloud-based tools and integrations ensures that business problems are solved with simple, connected solutions; for example, the cloud-based expenses system is integrated with our staff pay process. At Telefónica Tech, we constantly take best-of-breed cloud-based systems for core business processes like finance, timesheets, HR and CRM, and integrate them onto a single Microsoft Azure stack. The stack then provides Telefónica Tech with a single data lake from which to analyse and understand the business from.
The data lake feeds a series of dashboards for the directors, with the financial dashboard being the most important to me in my role. These dashboards, just as they do a car driver, give the directors of Telefónica Tech instant information from which to make business decisions and keep our people front of mind. This means we have always worked with a real-time view of the business and its performance, whereas we have seen cases of organisations struggling over a number of weeks to deliver a month-end report.
A dashboard approach means there is less need for reports, to use the car driver analogy again, at any time, our directors can glance at the dashboard for an instant update on the business. Having taken a glance, if the driver sees a warning light, they take action, and so do our directors. , We have also discovered that those cumbersome reports, that I mentioned above, that take weeks to create, are often never used and therefore never acted upon. Collecting data and then not acting on it is a waste of resources. We use dashboards to ensure our data becomes insightful. With insight, we can make a real difference to the business. As a result, Telefónica Tech always seeks to help its clients to adopt and adapt to dashboard methods, so they can make decisions quickly and accurately.
Well informed, kept informed
A dashboard approach to the business ensures that the directors are always able to see how Telefónica Tech is performing against its key performance indicators (KPI), and instantly know when to take action.
All of us have been through one of the most challenging experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic; the Telefónica Tech dashboards provided the senior leadership team with the information to make difficult decisions, to forecast worst-case scenarios, and most importantly, remain people-centric. By having the information to hand to communicate clearly with our people about how the business is performing, we maintained their trust. This transparency is an important cultural pillar of Telefónica Tech.
Protecting the culture of an organisation also defends the service offered to the customer and therefore, the bottom line. If your people don’t enjoy the culture of the organisation and feel secure, they begin to look for security elsewhere, and that can damage your business.
Too often, organisations make cuts to investments or their staffing levels based purely on a financial number, but that financial number doesn’t tell the whole story of the business. Poorly made cuts can lead to the loss of key skills, demotivation of those that remain in the role, and then customers receiving a less than ideal service from the organisation.
It’s about our people
Telefónica Tech uses its dashboards to provide transparency in our regular weekly communications to our team members, where KPIs are shared with everyone in the organisation. During 2020 when the pandemic began to reshape all our organisations, Telefónica Tech was able to communicate clearly and effectively with the team how the business was performing, how decisions were being made, and feedback from team members was really positive. The importance was that we showed everyone in the business we were as worried as they were, but also that the business was healthy and continuing with our culture and customer service would, and has, protected the organisation.
A strong emphasis on the people within the business has been at the heart of the growth of Telefónica Tech. We genuinely want our team to enjoy what they do.
Telefónica Tech demonstrates that an effective data approach enhances the environment, the trust and the culture of an organisation. Data and technology are the tools for transparency in business decision making, leadership and culture creation.
To find out how Telefónica Tech can help with your reporting and dashboards get in touch today.