The story behind Beagle – The conversational B.I tool that won global recognition by Microsoft, for being the best productivity app on MS Teams.
Data analytics adoption has always been one of the most pressing issues for organizations. The covid19 outbreak exacerbated the situation and affected quality of decision making across hierarchies.
Let’s take a few real-life scenarios that triggered the need for Beagle –
Scenario 1 –
The Chief Marketing Officer of a beverage brand went for a random field check. He wanted to get a feel of the potential opportunities and existing challenges for store owners. Every time he wanted to check stats while on the field, he had to make numerous calls to multiple people in the department. Aggregating and analyzing data in real-time, to be able to substantiate market findings with numbers, was another challenge.
Scenario 2 –
The HR Manager of a BPO wanted to track application status of candidates who applied in the last month for 5 different open positions. It took her 4 hours to assimilate data and yet it wasn’t complete. A team member was on leave and that meant she would have to wait another day to get remaining data.
Scenario 3 –
During one of the team meetings, the Sales Head of a cereal brand asked for a comparative analysis of new product sales vis-à-vis other products in the same category over the last few months. In a 60-minute meeting, 40 minutes were spent on finding relevant data. The remaining on analyzing the numbers.
Many companies took help of dashboard technology to address these challenges. But as the pandemic unfolded, and cultures transformed tremendously, dashboards failed to keep up the promise – the promise of filling up the data analytics gaps.
A fact we deduced from many of our conversations with existing clients – dashboards were just not agile enough to drive data analytics adoption.
- Reports/ Dashboards take a lot of time to load
- Everyone in the team is not trained on the dashboards
- Easier to have reports on the mobile to collaborate (laptop fatigue!)
While companies were struggling with data analytics adoption challenges, covid19 was leading to many more changes in the workplace. It redefined workplace culture including how teams interact with one another.
This led to remote work systems replacing conventional modes of working.
At times like these, Microsoft came to the rescue with its product MS Teams – a workplace collaboration tool that connects teams dispersed globally, with about 145 million daily active users.
With almost a 100% increase in user base from the past year, MS Teams is today the operating system of the remote workforce.
The insight led us to discover a unique opportunity to accelerate data analytics adoption through MS Teams.
We created Beagle, a conversational B.I application that gives faster insights in richly visual cards, within MS Teams.
Beagle is unique B.I tool, created to solve the post-covid pain-points of remote-working teams –
It offers –
- Insight Cards – Get real-time visual insights on the fly within MS Teams
- Natural Language Interface – Converse with your data
- Narrative Boards – Share, comment, and collaborate on Data with colleagues within MS Teams
Beagle is recognized for –
- Agility – faster access to data analytics
- Unified data view – breaks functional silos
- Zero training required – use data to drive decisions from day 1
Beagle is a futuristic solution for past and potential challenges relating to data analytics adoption.
Our conviction in the solution was further encouraged by Microsoft recently, as it declared Beagle – the best productivity tool on MS Teams. BEST in the world!
Beagle is the Global winner of Microsoft Teams App Development Challenge. Amongst more than 1200 distinctive entries from across the world, including US, Israel, France, Beagle from India won the world over for being the most innovative and productive app on MS Teams.
Winner announcement link – https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/office/blogs/microsoft-teams-app-development-challenge-winners/
As for the scenarios mentioned in the beginning, let’s see how Beagle solves the problems –
Scenario 1 – The Marketing Officer can simply ask Beagle for required analysis. It will only take him a few seconds to get access to required insights, from anywhere in the world. That too within MS Teams. No need to download any extra app or call employees for data.
Scenario 2 – The HR Manager can chat with Beagle within MS Teams for required information. She can choose filters as required to narrow down her search. No need to wait for the absent employee to conduct required analysis.
Scenario 3 – As meetings are conducted on MS Teams, no one needs to go outside of the collaboration tool to find and share data. Increase the productivity of meetings by reducing the time spent on finding data and analyzing reports.