All That Tech: 3 Technology Leaders Talk Tableau

Bill Inmon is known by many as the Father of Data Warehousing. He pioneered the concept with his 1992 book Building the Data Warehouse and later went on to do research in unstructured data. In 2003, he founded Forest Rim Technology, which builds databases out of textual data.

David Baudrez is the Head of Business Insight for Cisco Commercial in EMEA. A global IT leader, Cisco provides products and services that help people communicate all around the world.

Samit Yadav is the Senior Technology and Operations Director at PharmaSecure, a software and technology company that's working towards improving global public health.

Bill, David, and Samit are all Tableau customers who we recently got to interview. We enjoyed hearing what they're doing with data and technology, and are excited to share their stories with you!

When he started his current job, David had a strong business background with Cisco. But it was difficult to get insight from the data he was now tasked to analyze. "In a few weeks after starting this job," he said, "I looked at the problems and the challenges and the silos, and I got back to my boss with my resignation letter—telling him, look, I cannot do much with that unless you give me your full buy-in, executive sponsorship, and you give me a blank check to shake the tree." Find out what happened next in the second part of this interview.

And what about Samit and Bill?

• PharmaSecure works with clients in the healthcare industry to accomplish a wide range of goals related to public health. This includes working towards eliminating counterfeit drugs, connecting patients with safe medicines, and impacting patient adherence. “Data is at the cornerstone of our business," Samit explained. PharmaSecure started using Tableau to connect to MySQL and Excel, and that data is now giving them greater insight into patient health behavior. To learn more, check out the full interview.

• Forest Rim Technology has been transforming unstructured data into usable databases for over a decade. But, as Bill explained, the true value of a database is not an intuitive concept. "It was only when we took the results of what we did and put it into Tableau," said Bill, "that people suddenly understood what we were doing and said, ‘Gee, that's really what I want for my business.'" Hear more from Bill in this interview.

We love hearing how software and technology leaders are driving innovation with data. Discover what else is possible for tech companies today.