How to Create Alignment Within Your Organization
CSF is an Alberta based business that buys outstanding debts from lenders and seeks to obtain collections on these accounts to generate a return. They contract various agencies to assist in the collection of these balances and require the ability to accurately measure the performance of these agencies, demonstrate returns to their investors, and track accounts throughout their collectable life. Pontem has worked with CSF over the last 6 months to develop automated asset and agency performance reports that organize key metrics into insightful, easy to understand dashboards.
Challenge
A key characteristic of this industry is the significant amount of data and information to be sorted and utilized. There was an opportunity to improve and automate the reporting used to track key metrics and measure performance over time. This reporting had historically been completed using time consuming and error prone manual processes. With only a handful of costly software alternatives, CSF was looking for a partner who could provide a long term, practical solution for their reporting needs.
Strategy
Pontem worked closely with CSF Executives to review existing metrics and priorities the reporting that would have the biggest impact on the business. A clear understanding of the stakeholders who would be utilizing the different reporting was extremely important in implementing interactive reporting at the appropriate level of detail for users. Report users ranged from owners & investors to operational managers.
With alignment on the reporting requirements and priorities, Pontem began creating the dashboards that could succinctly tell the story of how CFS’s business was performing. We had weekly check in points with the Executive team to ensure our time was used as efficiently as possible and ensure the subtle details related to visualization and navigation, which are so critical to user satisfaction, were covered.
Pontem managed all technical aspects of this project from working with IT support to access the required database tables to creating the queries needed to ensure the reporting could be automated. All licensing and individual user requirements were managed by Pontem and user training was done remotely through screen sharing.
The final dashboard is now automatically updating from the required data sources with no manual intervention. Each report user has customized access to the reporting which ensures they only see the information most relevant to their role.
Results
CSF uses these dashboards on a daily basis to manage their business and have clarity on exactly what parts of their business are exceeding expectations vs. the areas that require additional attention. Whether it’s meetings with investors, agencies or the senior leadership team, everybody is looking at the same data and there is no uncertainty around the results. The previous time spent on manual reporting and fixing errors in the data has been replaced with more strategic discussions on how to optimize their operation and maximize their results. CSF is even more confident in their ability to manage their continued growth.
Pontem has recently began work on a phase 2 project with CSF. Our team at Pontem feels fortunate to work with an innovative company like CSF and look forward to creating more solutions together.