iflix transforms user data into powerful insights to create effective content

iflix is an online TV streaming service providing a wide selection of entertainment content from TV shows, movies, to local originals, live sports and news. Based in Malaysia, iflix serves millions of consumers across the world’s emerging markets. One of their greatest challenges is the need to create hyper local content that resonates with diverse audiences from Southeast Asia to the Middle East.

Global Director of Data Analytics Bruno Gagliardo shares how iflix uses Tableau to make sense of user data across different regions, and transform insights on consumer preferences into meaningful and effective content to retain and acquire customers.

iflix started using Tableau in 2017, and more than 350 staff today use Tableau to view and analyze data on a daily basis, from the content team to operations, sales and finance. One of the key insights iflix uncovered from their data was better understanding of audience preferences in different markets, enabling them to craft more original content suited to different local audiences. The iflix product has evolved tremendously from its beginnings three years ago, now offering free ad-sponsored content alongside a subscription-based tier with more local and original productions.

Localization is one of iflix’s key strategies, and their content team uses Tableau to track performance of different programs and identify the demographics of their core audience. The content operations team drills down further into localization analytics to understand the performance of each individual regions. The commercial teams use Tableau to track subscriptions and engagement, while the country managers analyze the performance of iflix partners in different regions, such as telcos and distributors. Throughout the business, Tableau has enabled more data-driven decision-making to optimize content and results.

Bruno leads a team of data analysts who produce Business Intelligence (BI) reports with Tableau for stakeholders and leadership, partnering with them to enable more data-driven business decisions. Management executives have been very impressed by iflix’s progress in the data analytics space, while external stakeholders such as investors are amazed by the quality of the reports produced with Tableau.

This was a big improvement, for their analytics practices were very disjointed before adopting Tableau. “It was very disjointed in terms of storytelling, so we reshaped the data analytics and access to data with Tableau,” shares Bruno. Now, high-quality BI reports communicate data in a clear and effective manner, engaging all levels of the business from executives to business users.

Creating a data-driven culture is the key to encourage people to ask questions out of their data. Tableau played an important role in iflix’s culture by unearthing meaningful data points and insights, which helped more business users see the value of data and ask for more.

A key factor enabling this cultural change is Tableau’s ease of use from a user experience standpoint, shares Bruno. Even people who are not fully trained can easily pick it up with the abundance of material shared by the Tableau community online.

“I think the value we can get out of data is something exponential,” he adds. “One data set gives you 1 to 10 insights. However, when you start combining those data sets you get hundreds or maybe thousands of insights.”

“This allows you to drive your business in different manners, and in our case, having access to data enables way more decision-making and key strategy change.”