COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL. DO NOT DISCLOSE.
German multinational company Knauf is a leading manufacturer of construction materials and building systems. With plants and other operations sites in over 85 countries, executives in 2023 announced new requirements for standardization. After evaluating several analytics tools, they decided to implement JMP on a global level.
Many new users onboarded in the wake of this decision, however, lacked the skillset and understanding to get value from JMP. Account Executive Jessica Bechtel explains: "After some discussions, I got the impression that the big picture was missing. There was no clear strategy, and they also had no insight into potential bottlenecks. That's why I thought 'hey, this is the perfect opportunity to do the Analytics Maturity Assessment (AMA).'"
The results showed that while many Knauf employees were aware of DOE, quality and SPC best practices, they were overwhelmingly at a beginner level and tended to fall back on Excel for looking at their data. The JMP team also discovered that many people were still working with JMP 16, completely unaware of the existence of Workflow Builder -- a tool that would inevitably save them significant time on recurring tasks.
With these findings in hand, the JMP team's key contacts at Knauf shared the project at a meeting of global directors in December 2023. Ultimately, the decision was made to add an additional 30 licenses in the immediate term and to bring on an external partner to develop a comprehensive JMP training program.
Key takeaways:
- The Analytics Maturity Assessment helped immediately move the needle on JMP's relationship with Knauf. Says Jessica: "It's super important to let the customer know that you understand their business and that you want to help them solve the challenges they have. It's not just about JMP as a tool, but JMP as an enabler."
- Don't hesitate to ask your contact about their strategy and what steps have or have not been defined, so that you can be a more effective partner in moving their organization toward analytics maturity.
- Don't talk about JMP as a tool. "In the future, I plan to emphasize the strategic relevance of JMP; how JMP is changing your business model," Jessica says.
Thanks so much @JessicaBechtel for sharing your experience and findings with the organization.
Great job, Jessica and team. Congrats on this win!
Great work @JessicaBechtel and team - The AMA revealed Knauf was spending +8hrs/week on data preparation! That's a significant finding and it sounds like their directors were also surprised to learn this fact. Great story of how JMP partners with customers to grow their analytics maturity.
