Every data novice becomes a data lover through the use of natural language

What was the revenue of our Gucci products at the Amsterdam branch in 2017 and 2018?
Are there more men or women making purchases over 100 euros during working hours?
What is the average number of years of service of our inside sales employees in London and Amsterdam?

Asking questions in everyday language within your BI & Analytics environment increases usage and adoption. The value of such a solution becomes priceless!

Data-driven focus cannot be taken for granted

It’s widely known that companies that maximize their data usage perform better than their competitors. This focus on data-driven operations provides insights that lead to better decisions for higher revenue or lower costs. While capturing and analyzing data may seem like a given, take an honest look at your organization: don’t you feel like important information is often missed?
One reason, in my opinion, is that data users are almost never data experts. I sometimes refer to them, perhaps bluntly, as “data novices.” They are often managers or staff working across various functional departments, such as sales managers, HR managers, controllers, marketers, or buyers. If you ask them directly what information they need, they generally know on a high level but not in detail because they don’t fully grasp the potential of the data available to them.

Data structures too complex for users

A “pile” of data is made up of tables with fields and rows—often vast in number and originating from diverse source systems. These tables often have cryptic names, abbreviations, or duplicate names. Imagine seeing fields like ‘owner,’ ‘amount,’ ‘source,’ ‘account,’ or ‘revenue’ appearing repeatedly in various tables within an ERP or CRM system. How do you ensure you extract the right information from the right tables and combine it accurately? This is the work of a data specialist, someone who can turn the user’s question into clear answers and smart queries, even if those questions are complex.

“Play” to take advantage

A user who can’t operate BI tools themselves due to a lack of knowledge prevents optimal use of available data. This gap, requiring significant expertise to navigate BI tools, holds back the full potential of data. Users need to be able to interact with the data, develop an intuitive understanding, and enjoy exploring it more deeply. Only then will they truly grasp the data, uncover interesting relationships, draw conclusions, and drill down into outliers, for instance.

Fortunately, the technology to convert natural language into specific commands understood by software is now available. And that’s a win for the user: we can all become data lovers!

A good example of using natural language is the new ‘Ask Data’ feature from Tableau’s self-service BI & Analytics solution. Read more here including a short demo or download a free trial from Tableau.

Jelle Huisman managing partner

Jelle Huisman

Managing Partner