Engineer Better Outcomes with Better Data Visibility

Most mid-market companies track the obvious metrics such as revenue, margins, utilization rates. But when we dig into their operations, we consistently find that the data they’re watching isn’t telling them where to actually focus their attention. They’re measuring outcomes instead of the inputs that drive those outcomes. The result is that even strong operators end up reacting to lagging indicators instead of managing the levers that actually move them.

My firm does BI and analytics work for mid-market companies in the $50M to $1B revenue range, but the BI principles we apply for our customers can work for any size company.

We recently worked with a mid-market commercial services firm that was already running well. They were good operators with a solid team and were growing rapidly. But they knew they could improve their margins dramatically with small improvements in their technician utilization numbers. Every one-percentage point improvement in utilization would drop approximately an extra $1M per year to their bottom line. The problem was that they were already focused on the utilization metric, but weren’t having much success in improving it.

Through interviews with their field managers, we identified the most likely proximate causes that were eating into billable hours: administrative time, travel time, training time. Because we already had access to data from their timekeeping and ticketing systems, we could quickly surface most of these metrics. We added fleet management data and then spent time defining measures that made it easy to see what was actually happening in the field.

With those few metrics in hand, their managers started seeing where the big opportunities were. The data pointed to specific processes they could review and improve, and more importantly, let them track whether changes were actually moving the needle. Within a handful of months, they improved utilization by four percentage points and still saw room for further improvement. And they did it without adding headcount. The result was over $4M in increased annual margin, on the same book of business.

This isn’t about AI, machine learning, or predictive modeling. It’s about giving your managers the daily clarity to focus on what matters. Most firms have the raw data to do that, but haven’t distilled their data into a daily decision-making tool. When BI is done right, it becomes a tight, efficient management tool, as opposed to monthly reporting artifacts.

So how do you do it right? Start by identifying one question that matters. If you could know the answer to that question every day and it would allow you to know who to call, or where to focus your attention to improve outcomes, you’re in the ballpark. Just start there.

If your internal team doesn’t have the bandwidth to pull it together (a common problem), get help. You wouldn’t expect your top consultants to build your tech stack on nights and weekends. The same goes for your BI infrastructure. Find someone who knows how to build fast and iterate.

Better data won’t solve all your operational issues. But it will tell you where to focus and help your team act faster and with more confidence and less wasted effort. That alone is enough to improve your margins.

How to Get Started

1. Pick one question that if you had the answer, you know you could improve things. It should be something specific like, “Where are we consistently scheduling more senior staff than needed for the work?”
2. Inventory your existing data. Look at your time tracking, accounting, and project tools. You probably already have what you need to get the answers.
3. Sketch a simple view. A spreadsheet is fine. Figure out what you need to see (and nothing extra at this point), so at a glance you know where to focus making improvements.
4. Test the idea manually first. Prove that it’s useful and used. Then automate only what’s needed to keep it front and center. Use this manual period to confirm which managers will actually look at this data and how they’ll use it to know where to focus their efforts.
5. Then automate gathering the data and showing those key measures on a dashboard. Don’t overbuild. A narrow, well-used dashboard beats a sprawling report no one opens.
6. Use it and iterate. As you use it you will learn how to make it better. Keep making adjustments until you are moving the needle. If you find your managers aren’t using it as you expected, review your assumptions about what would be useful, and iterate.

The best operators don’t rely on intuition alone. They engineer visibility into specific drivers that can improve their business, then act decisively on what they see.