Welcome to Limitless B.I., a show that interviews real world, innovative business leaders who strive to see beyond the data to produce tangible results in their organizations using business intelligence. Today Gareth Cosker, Surface Commercial Executive at Microsoft, joins the show to share his background in IT and how he was able to develop a sustainability-focused application using Low-Code No-Code tools. Gareth speaks to the tool Squirrel365 and praises its ease of use and simplicity. Gareth also shares some of the results he was able to yield and speculates on the future of business intelligence applications.

01:03 – Gareth Cosker joins the show to talk about his IT background and how his career path led him to a unique role at Microsoft

05:07 – Sustainability and a recent application Gareth developed using Low-Code No-Code tools

09:01 – Learning how to use Squirrel

13:27 – Gareth speaks to some of the results of his application and what’s next

17:39 – Why Gareth chose Squirrel365

19:45 – Gareth speculates on the future of dashboard applications

22:48 – Microsoft’s growth mindset

“Now I still operate within the public sector, which is where my heart is and where I think technology can drive the biggest impact, whether that’s in hospitals, front line workers, counsels, those sort of establishments.” (03:25) (Gareth)

“I’ve always said about business intelligence that the aim should be for people to get in, get what they need, get out, and get on with their job.” (11:06) (Donald)

“For me I had a very specific use case. I wanted to present to a customer - which we would traditionally fdo via PowerPoint - and I needed a tool that integrated into that. So, I reached out to colleagues at Microsoft to establish if we have this. There were various creative ways that we would be able to import that into there, but it kinda didn’t give me that visual representation that I needed. Squirrel was purely down to ease of use and how simple for me to keep that kind of backend app going. And the plug-in feature in PowerPoint is really, really simple.” (18:39) (Gareth)

“Wouldn’t it be great if you were on a slide and you could just talk to that slide and it would update that data?” (21:16) (Gareth)

Limitless BI Website – https://limitlessbi.com/

Donald’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/donaldmaccormick/?originalSubdomain=uk

Gareth’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/garethcosker/?originalSubdomain=uk

Squirrel365 Website – https://squirrel365.io/

Welcome to Limitless B.I., a show that interviews real world, innovative business leaders who strive to see beyond the data to produce tangible results in their organizations using business intelligence. Today Ziv Barzilay, Director, Products & Engineering at Salesforce, joins the show to expound on the remarkable innovations he’s been working on at Salesforce. Ziv focuses specifically on the Squirrel business application he’s been able to integrate into the organization and the astounding results he’s already achieved less than one year after launch. Ziv discusses engaging salespeople and increasing user adoption, design strategies and what he believes the future holds for similar business intelligence solutions at Salesforce.

01:03 – Ziv Barzilay joins the show to talk about his background and the exciting project he’s working on at Salesforce

05:38 – Tips for engaging salespeople and increasing user adoption

09:27 – Ziv speaks to the type of designs they’ve utilized to simplify their offerings

11:37 – Donald and Ziv speak to the value of the tool Squirrel

15:51 – How Ziv’s colleagues at Salesforce view Squirrel

18:42 – Creating new business cases and identifying value drivers

20:18 – Where Ziv sees the future of business applications such as Squirrel

21:37 – Donald and Paul take a moment to praise the remarkable innovations Ziv and his team have been able to achieve at Salesforce

“It wasn’t easy in the beginning. We went through different design approaches and finally we were able to balance between ‘How do we capture, as much as possible, use cases and still provide a more intuitive UI that Account Executives can actually use themselves. And we were actually very successful because we have about 3,000 AEs using the tool right now and we were able to touch over a quarter of a billion dollars of annual contract value.” (04:31) (Ziv)

“Squirrel is very powerful in terms of almost every property in every component can be connected to a formula. So, the user interface is now fully dynamic based on user conditions. So, we were able to do almost everything we wanted to do with the UI. And, another advantage is that, when we worked with our stakeholders and we got a lot of feedback, we were able to quickly implement new ideas and requirements because of the ease of use. Squirrel is very easy to implement or change things and deploy that to production. It was very simple.” (12:38) (Ziv)

“It doesn’t look like B.I. or a dashboard. People look at it as a full-blown application end-to-end.” (16:23) (Ziv)

“Each business case produces hundreds of data points which we can’t get elsewhere from any third-party company. And now we generate our own benchmark, which we can use for product management, product marketing, roadmap, and other areas in the company.” (19:59) (Ziv)

Limitless BI Website – https://limitlessbi.com/

Donald’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/donaldmaccormick/?originalSubdomain=uk

Ziv’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/zbarzil/?originalSubdomain=il

Squirrel365 Website – https://squirrel365.io/

Welcome to Limitless B.I., a show that interviews real world, innovative business leaders who strive to see beyond the data to produce tangible results in their organizations using business intelligence. Today Rob Scott, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Smart WFM, joins the show to explore the consumerization of business intelligence solutions and how Human Resource departments across the globe need to leverage these solutions, along with data, to drive value and be successful. Rob discusses the unique mix of business, psychology, technical, and HR experience he brings to his role at Smart WFM. Finally, Rob provides real-world examples of how users are becoming empowered by B.I. tools and speculates on what the future holds for business intelligence.

01:00 – Rob Scott joins the show to explain how his background in Psychology, Technology and Business Economics has played a key role in his current role at Smart WFM

06:48 – Technology is not a slave

08:26 – The consumerization of business systems

12:50 – Simplicity vs. complexity

16:09 – Why choice of technology is paramount

18:47 – Examples of users being empowered by B.I. tools

26:27 – Data integration in the HR world

“This is not just an HR issue. The combination of the human mind and technology spans across all forms of business. And in my current COO role, I see that all the time. It doesn’t matter what part of the business you’re in; how we engage with technology is becoming more and more important.” (06:31) (Rob)

“The notion that digitization is all about empowering employees to do more with the technology, not have more technology, is a fundamental shift that’s taking place.” (11:41) (Rob)

“Design is quite important. And, I think it’s a future skill for any part of the organization where you have capacity to create more personalized technology. Most HR systems and HR vendors have gone down the path of trying to think of every potential option that may be required with building a feature. The problem with that is that very often people look at all these bells and whistles and go, ‘Let me see if I can find a problem that this can solve.’ And the problem may not exist.” (15:08) (Rob)

“For me, this is why I think exposing HR people to easy tools where they can literally create stuff for themselves is something that I think is going to take on a life of its own. And once people understand that and understand how it can integrate with current technology platforms they use, they’ll see the value of being able to do something really quickly and automatically build out that experience they’re trying to build for their employees.” (18:16) (Rob)

“The one thing that the HR world is coming to terms with is that they have to deal with data.” (26:27) (Rob)

Limitless BI Website – https://limitlessbi.com/

Donald’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/donaldmaccormick/?originalSubdomain=uk

Rob’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/robscottinsyd/?originalSubdomain=au

Squirrel365 Website – https://squirrel365.io/