Grimco

Grimco employs embedded analytics to drive data into revenue

International wholesale sign-supply manufacturer chooses Pyramid Analytics for its flexible embedding, self-service, and hybrid-deployment capabilities.


CHALLENGE	SOLUTION	RESULT
Previous data tools were hard to use and did not offer “clean embed,” resulting in few reports and even fewer business insights.	Pyramid is designed from the bottom up to solve all embedding challenges for every customer, regardless of skill level, infrastructure requirements, or size.	Grimco now provides governed self-service access throughout their organization, increasing access to reports and analysis for technical and non-technical workers.
A complex sales environment with data spread across disparate systems made it difficult to uncover actionable insights.	Pyramid’s centralized platform blends multi-source direct data into meaningful insights and visuals with the fastest direct query engine.	The amount of time sales reps spend on data-related efforts has significantly reduced.
Incomplete data meant sales reps couldn’t get 360-degree customer views to inform sales strategies.	Pyramid provides a single source of truth, with all data in one place to answer questions on executive dashboards and complete 360-degree customer views.	Sales reps can identify new sales opportunities and uncover e-commerce cross-sell opportunities for additional revenue.
Previous data tools needed re-tooling to move from on-premises to the cloud.	Pyramid enables a flexible cloud strategy through a hybrid deployment environment, regardless of where the data resides.	Grimco is migrating to the cloud at its own pace.

Grimco is an international wholesale sign-supply manufacturer and distributor with more than 50 locations across North America, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Grimco is the largest dealer of HP wide- and large-format printers in the United States. In business for more than 145 years, Grimco supplies the sign industry with traffic signs, blanks, substrates, boards, digital print media, wrap films, sign vinyl, application tape, banner material and supplies, sign frames, banner stands, LEDs, and electrical accessories, grand format solvent/UV/latex printers, inks, and software.

Grimco has a complex sales environment with challenging data. Because data was housed in three different source systems, the BI team had to invest significant time preparing data. Disparate information was spread across multiple systems, making it difficult to collect and uncover actionable insights.

In 2021, Grimco began using Power BI for its analytics needs, largely because it already had an enterprise license with Microsoft. They sought to build embedded dashboards that could work within their CRM. The results were disappointing: six months and some 600 hours later, they’d generated three reports—two visual and one tabular.

“They were too hard to use and awkward for the users,” says Varon Fugman, Grimco’s business intelligence architect. “They required too much filtering. Moreover, Power BI did not smoothly embed in our CRM.” Fugman and the Grimco team knew there was a better way.

THE CHALLENGE

Grimco needed an enterprise platform to bring together its disparate data, enable them to answer questions quickly, and explore a more proactive approach to doing business. Their end goals were straightforward:

A platform that would easily embed into any application to drive adoption
A browser-based interface for sharing and reuse within the organization
Flexible deployment options, regardless of where the data resides, as they move from on-premises to the cloud
Provide self-sufficiency to end users in a governed manner
Automation of data flows and integration of third-party data (e.g., Hubspot)

Fugman and Grimco turned to Pyramid Analytics to present a single source of truth for both leaders and the sales team, where all their analytics were accessible from one end-to-end platform, and questions were answered about everything from executive dashboards to 360-degree customer views.

THE SOLUTION

Pyramid’s unified analytics platform provides Grimco with a host of benefits, including:

Fully flexible embedding options leveraging their applications framework
A centralized platform with security and data governance managed by the BI team
The ability to directly query against current and future data sources
Scalable multi-tier architecture that supports multi-tenancy for internal and external deployments
Cloud strategy enabled through a hybrid deployment environment
Automation of real-time alerts, tasks, and content distribution to end users
The ability to enhance and enrich data with low code to pre-built ML algorithms

The Pyramid Platform is designed from the bottom up to solve all embedding challenges for every customer—no matter the skill level, infrastructure requirements, or size. With Pyramid, Grimco has broadened access to users everywhere in the organization, improved self-service capabilities, and increased access to reports and analysis for technical and non-technical workers alike.

“Our business users can do their own data ingestion—import and do data mashups—without needing IT help,” Fugman says. “Pyramid lets us have the right level of governance, based on the proficiency level of the user.”

THE RESULT

Grimco is building out dashboards for their sales team, and Pyramid is being used by key sales and marketing users to gain customer feedback before rollout. Executive dashboards are being developed for the visibility of sales performance. With Pyramid helping them bring together their disparate data, the company gets answers to questions quickly and can run the business more proactively.

Grimco is now using its data for a complete enterprise view and a 360-degree customer view embedded in its CRM. The organization continues to build out dashboards for the sales team with 18 embedded dashboards within their custom CRM application (developed in React.js) deployed within the first year. Overall, this helps drive net new revenue and identify new sales opportunities. With new visibility into, and insights from, their data—especially from e-commerce—they can uncover cross-sell opportunities for additional revenue. Lastly, the time Grimco reps spend on data-related efforts has been cut significantly.

“The administration is just so much cleaner on Pyramid,” Fugman says. “In Power BI, everything needed to be re-tooled to move from on-prem to the cloud. We don’t have the employees to do all that. Pyramid is agnostic about where data lives so that we can move to the cloud at our pace. We are leveraging our current on-prem assets and beginning to do things in the cloud comfortably.

“We could not be more pleased with Pyramid, particularly the embedding capabilities—they have exceeded our expectations. They were giddy when the team learned they could dynamically publish new content and significantly cut the development turnaround time. We have been future-proofed with Pyramid. We are with the right team, all under one umbrella.”

With Pyramid Analytics, Grimco can:

Integrate data seamlessly for insights.
Embed analytics for enhanced usability.
Accelerate cloud migration flexibly
Boost sales with 360-degree views.

We could not be more pleased with Pyramid, particularly the embedding capabilities—they have exceeded our expectations. We have been future-proofed with Pyramid. We are with the right team, all under one umbrella.

– Varon Fugman, BI Architect at Grimco

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