A Data-Driven Culture Starts with a Better Experience with Data

For more than 25 years, I’ve focused on helping companies use data to deliver better experiences to customers.

In my last role as Domo CMO, I saw firsthand how real-time data can also improve the way companies operate. Real-time data helped me know the business inside and out and empowered me to look at our results in new and innovative ways. Most importantly, the data aligned my team behind a common set of goals.

There are few companies that are thinking about transformation through real-time data as thoughtfully as Fidelity Investments. That was clear when Gene Rubenstein shared his experiences earlier this year at Domopalooza, Domo’s annual customer conference.

During an engaging Q&A, Fidelity’s head of operations and service delivery detailed how creating new experiences with data is helping the 73-year-old firm stay positioned to succeed for the next 73 years. 

Fidelity manages $2.4 trillion in assets and employs 50,000 people across four distinct business units, so as you can imagine having data wasn’t the problem. The problem Fidelity recognized – and it’s the same problem so many other organizations have right now – was that despite having business intelligence type tools and systems across each business, their data wasn’t as useful as it should be. It was stuck in silos, and by the time it was in front of executives, it was usually static and out of date.

For a company focused from the top down on innovating for customers and using data to stay one step ahead, that was no way to run a business.

It was Fidelity CEO Abby Johnson, in fact, who asked Gene to look into Domo after she overheard Domo’s CEO talking about the product at an event.

Gene noted that with so many businesses and product lines, Fidelity was looking to bring all its data together and provide a digital platform that was integrated and intuitive for their customers, employees, and leaders. They were hoping to easily understand, for example, if a 401K customer was also a personal investor through Fidelity’s retail business so they could find new ways to deliver value. It was important to have a solution that worked the way Fidelity’s executives worked, which meant it had to work perfectly on mobile devices. But most importantly, Fidelity needed to connect data sources from across their different businesses seamlessly and without analysts having to manipulate the feeds.

Initially, only the executive team was supposed to have access to the information flowing through Domo. But soon, Gene realized that the information they were relying on to run their business – like their CRM and revenue data - was already in Domo, so why not make it available to more people?

Gene said it took about two seconds and a quick diagram to get the C-suite on board with expanding the number of employees with access to their real-time data. The next thing he knew, they were rolling Domo out to all of the senior leaders. Now more than 1,500 people at Fidelity are using it on their phones and tablets.

That’s cool. But I think that what Fidelity has discovered from an innovation standpoint is even cooler: when you put real-time data directly into the hands of people across the organization, you empower everyone to take actions that help the business with the right data at the right time in the right place.

Like it or not, that’s what’s required to stay ahead of the game in today’s market. Now, Gene says his executives are exploring their data instead of just scrolling on spreadsheets. People are double clicking when they see real-time data and drilling down, asking questions they wouldn’t have been inspired to ask before.

In other words, the entire construct has changed, which is the same pattern I saw when first using Domo. The ability to mine information changes the way you approach everything. Conversations, meetings, decisions, and outcomes.

Toward the end of the session, Gene half-jokingly said he and his colleagues used to think about digital transformation as “putting a PDF on an iPad.” Now, Fidelity’s offices have rooms with huge screens projecting real-time data to invite employees to ask questions together and find answers. That’s the kind of shift that changes a company for good and changes the way people not only think about data, but about solving problems. And when you see it working in your own company, you’ll know there’s no going back to the old ways.