At Wheaton, Access to Data Makes People 'Want to Do Better'

Wheaton Industries started as a family-owned business 126 years ago. It has since grown into a worldwide enterprise that makes glass and plastic containers for the life-science and healthcare markets.

For many years, analytics at Wheaton involved a using a highlighter pen on dot matrix paper reports. Wheaton’s sales team used to feel like they were on an island, says Chris Gildea, vice president of North American sales.

“No one ever sent them any data,” says Chris.

Things started to change when Wheaton adopted Tableau Online. When the sales team integrated Tableau with Salesforce, it had a breakthrough. Sales reps could suddenly dive into real-time data using interactive dashboards. They could also pull in additional data to explore follow-up questions.

“We have a lot of data from a lot of different sources, and Tableau Online makes it super-easy to fetch that data,” Chris says. “One click and you’re done.”

The sales team now uses dashboards to track a number of KPIs including performance to quota, invoice totals, and the sales opportunity pipeline.

And the sales reps aren’t the only ones happy. Marketing, operations, and finance teams have since followed suit in embracing self-service analytics. The finance team now uses Tableau to conduct internal audits by date range.

One big advantage of Tableau Online, says Chris, is the speed of deployment. He recalled a time when his CFO called him at 10 p.m. while running late on a budget.

“I just sent him a link to a Tableau dashboard, but then he says he doesn’t have Tableau,” says Chris.

That was not a problem. All it took was a few minutes, a computer, and an Internet connection. Soon, the CFO was soon up and running with access to all of the dashboards in Tableau Online.

Chris says shifting Wheaton’s culture was challenging at first, but ultimately rewarding. The change has pushed the entire organization to make data-driven decisions, says Kevin Griffies, Wheaton’s business intelligence leader.

“They are able to use this data to say, ‘I want to do better,’” says Kevin.

“We’ve given them the ability to feel connected to the business at all times,” says Chris.

Chris Gildea and Kevin Griffies shared Wheaton’s story at the Tableau Conference. You can watch their session as part of the Virtual Tableau Conference. For a more in-depth look at how Wheaton uses Tableau, watch this webinar.

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