Rethinking Insights: Going from What to Why

If revenue teams truly know their business analytics they can answer all three questions about their metrics: what, why, and how.
Rethinking Insights_ Going from What to Why

When we talk about business analytics we often stress the importance of going from what to why. It’s all about getting that deeper understanding of why your metrics are moving in a certain direction in order to know how to implement change.

 

How well do you truly know your business analytics?

I’m sure you know what is happening, we all know what it means if our metrics are trending up or down. That’s why we built all those dashboards and reports, and spreadsheets in the first place. But as soon as you tell your team what is happening, the next question is always why? Why are those the results? And once we understand why, it’s followed up with how do we change it?

If you truly know your analytics you can answer all three questions: what, why, and how. Unfortunately, a lot of us get stuck at the why. Why are my metrics trending up or down? Why are the numbers showing this? And if we’re honest, finding that why is one of the hardest parts of the job. Despite having access to multiple dashboards and reports, those things only tell you what is happening, not why. And if we can’t get to why we can’t get to how. That makes it really hard to implement change and grow the business.

 

Getting to the Why Faster

Today, the only way to get to that why is to go through the analytics process. Typically this is done by a data analyst. They take a couple of the data sources they think may have the why hidden within them. They bring those data sets together. They choose how to aggregate the data. They drop features and maybe add in more. It’s only a small sliver of your data that will actually end up being used. Next, the analyst starts sorting through that data using BI tools to find insights, to find your “whys”. From there they prioritize what they think are the most important and present those insights to you. It’s a lot of work and it’s a slow process.

At Unsupervised, we noticed how many tools try to address the what or the how, but they don’t really address the why. So we built a platform that helps revenue teams get to that why and get there faster. We do this by automating the data preparation, insight generation, and prioritization of the opportunities found. That way, data analysts can spend less time preparing data and more time finding opportunities that will drive change.

Unsupervised uses AI to analyze an immense amount of complex data in less time than the traditional analytics process. Not only that, but because our software doesn’t limit the data and leverages unsupervised learning to process it, it removes bias. This means that the things you never would have thought to look for can be uncovered. The best part is, as your data grows, you can continue adding it to the system, helping you to uncover better patterns and better whys.

 

Understanding Insights Better

If you can get to the why faster, and find even more insights you’ve unlocked so much more opportunity for growth. Instead of your data team spending the majority of their time on preparing your business analytics. They can now start better understanding the insights and moving you towards the how even faster. Revenue teams can work with analysts to uncover how pulling different levers will in return create different outcomes. Bigger outcomes. More money.

Let’s go through an example, Charlotte’s Web is the largest producer of CBD products in the US. They’re a CPG company selling to drug stores nationwide as well as having a direct-to-consumer channel. They need to understand what moves average order value (AOV) and how to increase customer lifetime value (CLV) on their direct channel?

The data Charlotte’s Web is working with is incredibly complex consisting of over 400 million rows, 1200 columns, and 17 tables of website interactions, customer data, and transactions. From there, the Unsupervised AI expanded the data by 400% adding in new features found by the AI. The results? Over 50 actionable insights within the first few months of usage leading to over $2 million in opportunities. They were able to understand the why behind their insights and in return provide immediate value to customers.

Keep reading about Charlotte Web’s experience with Unsupervised > 

Going from what to why quickly is not easy, but it’s essential for any leader looking to stop making assumptions and start making decisions.  Unsupervised is on a mission to make that happen. To give revenue teams the tools they need to make better decisions. Want to see if Unsupervised is the right fit for your company? Fill out the form below to learn more.

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