Business Insights - From data chaos to strategic clarity: Turning noise into insight

"At Aspen Global Incorporated, our goal is to integrate the power of big data into our strategic decision-making."

Can you introduce yourself and tell us more about your main responsibilities??

I am the Data, Reporting and Analytics Manager at Aspen Global Incorporated (AGI).?

Aspen manages and maintains the intellectual property rights, regulatory commercialisation, and supply of pharmaceutical products all over the world. As such, we deal with complex pharma related data about an equally complex pharma-related supply chain.?

As the data manager at AGI, I am responsible for the entire area of reporting and analytics. My job has an array of activities related to data transformation per job function that allows users to visualise how the business is performing and what actions they need to take to supply medicines effectively around the world.

I also work closely with management and the Digitalisation?&?Technology team to ensure a sound data governance. The aim is to provide AGI with the best understanding of our data in addition to providing the most efficient and user-friendly reporting platform? within AGI.

Can you walk us through what a typical day or week looks like for you??

My typical daily routine is a mix between internal meetings and tackling tasks linked to our mid- or long-term objectives. It can be anything from ensuring that all reports are refreshed, to scoping for a reporting requirement for a new pharmacovigilance dashboard, or even just working on an automated contracts register that triggers an email to the user whenever the renewal window approaches.?

I manage my team’s priorities and deployment of their skills to attend to new urgent requirements or unplanned reporting issues faced by the business – we work with different departments at AGI which requires juggling between different projects that require our attention and input.?

What innovative solutions, tools, or process improvements have you helped to implement that have improved efficiency?

Right before COVID-19, I was part of a team that championed the introduction and use of Microsoft Power BI into our organisation. Power BI is a business intelligence platform that provides business users with tools for aggregating, analysing, visualising, and sharing data.?

While working with Power BI, I grew confident that it would allow the business to move away from clunky files to an automated reporting experience, which it did. We can now obtain an overview of the business’s critical data relevant to their work as a visually appealing dashboard – which is refreshed in real time. This ensures that we are as efficient as possible.?

We then took it further in the team and introduced the use of Alteryx for users in the data team – that allowed us to further transform the data to answer more questions the business had. The aim of using a powerful ETL (extract, transform and load) tool was to connect data from various sources and allow for a more integrated consumption of data in the business.?

How has your scope of work evolved since you’ve been here? What changes were you a part of?

There has been a gradual, but seismic shift in our work over the last four years. We went from being the reporting team for one department at AGI to being the data, analytics, and reporting team for various other streams of the business. This started with a solid partnership with our IT team and generating appeal for BI reports while showcasing how effectively we can manage our data.?

We slowly relinquished some of our excel reports and started automating a list of BI reports and documented processes that allowed us to document the requirements towards automation and sustainable reporting.?

It also meant the department had to move away from being a subject expert in Supply Chain and learn about other departments in the AGI world such as Finance, Quality and Regulatory. We partner with key owners in other departments and understand what they do and what are their requirements. This allowed us to view the business as an end-to-end chain, breaking up from any potential silos.

How do you and your team streamline processes for efficiency and maintain the quality of Aspen’s services?

At Aspen Global Incorporated, our aim was to reconcile the business in a more integrated manner when it came to data and reporting.?

We drafted processes in documenting data and reporting requirements – how to draft reporting requirements, how to partner with IT to automate our data inputs and outputs, how to best present the data in a consistent manner that looks and feels like AGI data, and how to organically create reporting backups in case of staff movements to ensure sustainable reporting – these processes were further strengthened and brought forward whenever we would discuss report building.?

From raw data to insights, how does data shapes managerial choices?

Data is first and foremost “noise”. On its own, it rarely speaks to anyone but a data analyst or a data scientist. Our job is to reduce that noise and distil what is important to the business. What is truly overdue in terms of product deviations; which logistics provider is the most efficient and safe for the business; which manufacturing site is causing the most stock outs for Aspen Global Incorporated – all these questions are answered by the data we have on hand. Our job is to answer these questions when almost everything can change the next day.?

We also use the raw data to predict what may happen to our business in the next few days, months, and years. There is quite a bit of strategy involved here and we cannot take the credit for driving how the business moves, but we can provide support with some predictive analysis where the business will land financially and where it makes sense to focus right now.?

From our raw data, we are often told to answer the “what if”.? What if this manufacturing site stops manufacturing? What if we move our manufacturing from this site to another site? What would the impact be on our business if we divested this product? The executive team must give an answer on these critical questions on a weekly/monthly basis, and we draft scenarios (with a healthy number of assumptions) that allow us to understand which option to choose.?

What is the impact of your data analytics & visualisation skills on the company & the world??

There has been growth in the business (new deals and launches) that has changed our requirements in analytics these last few years. Our ability to best use Aspen’s data and visualise our needs has allowed us to be more empowered in business decisions. There is also a keen focus to ensure correct data input and data sanity post input, which allows efficient data governance (through people: reporting, master data teams and processes).?

We sit in a meeting with internal and external stakeholders, and we can use our reports to ask meaningful questions, challenge and propose solutions and support to drive the business.

Where do you see your role in 3-5 years from now? What will continue to change and evolve in your field and how do you anticipate to approach those changes?

?It is an exciting journey at AGI and with how the world is evolving, I feel emboldened to pursue a role that keeps on promoting the growth of data maturity in the business. We need to keep trying to optimise the business at scale and our reporting needs to be better at anticipating change. There are several data maturity models in nature and based on how the business evolves, we may need to periodically reassess what is Aspen’s data maturity level and how do we grow – with respect to Aspen’s working context and requirements.

There has been a growing need from the world to leverage machine learning (ML) and transform how we consume data at speed and generate meaningful information for the business to make decisions.?

There is a countdown for AI to assist businesses in making decision using a learning model. Until such time, we continue to study what is best suited for our business, what tools are appropriate, and predict our data requirements as a strategy, and not as a response to a crisis.