Industrial Talk is speaking with to Jon Thompson, Cofounder and CSO with Blue Margin about "Increasing Accountability, Efficiency, Productivity and Profitability through data visibility". Get the answers to your "Data" questions along with Jon's  unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

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JON THOMPSON'S CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-thompson-37282432/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bluemargin/

Company Website: https://www.bluemargin.com/

PODCAST VIDEO:

https://youtu.be/3q4FsDc98Vg

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Industrial Academy: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-academy/

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

data, dashboard, business, company, industrial, reporting, people, sales, systems, create, conversation, area, industry, metrics, private equity, outcome, insights, pull, margin, build

00:04

Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go

00:22

around once again, thank you very much for joining industrial talk the number one industrial related podcast in the universe that is backed up by data that celebrates industry professionals all around the world, like you, I'm pointing at you, if you are out on the video, I'm pointing at you. Because you're bold, you're brave, you dare greatly. You're changing lives, and therefore you're changing the world. That's why we here at industrial talk our absolute cheerleaders for you, and we want you to succeed, and then we're going to do everything that we can to help industry succeed. Take that to the bag. All right in the hot seat, gentleman by the name of Jon Thompson. Blue Margin is the company he is a well, he's got a long title right here and it says senior partner, co founder and CSO of that organization Blue Margin, we're going to be talking about that data, that data that you have to begin to mine and be able to see it and be able to put it into a way that you can actually take action, gold in that data. So let's get cracking. Yeah, there is, I mean, come on, you know, I have conversations at all of these incredible conferences. And there's, there's, there's three things outside of all the other stuff, but there's three sort of themes that take place with a lot of this conversation is one, it's always a people thing, right? People? Where do I find people? How do I retain people, people, right people is it. The other area is of course, cyber, because I, I, I want to, you know, participate in this digital transformation journey. And the reality is, is that if you're doing that, you need to make sure that that you're properly protected. So cyber is a big conversation, and the other one outside of making it simple. Take that to the bank to make it simple. And that's why this particular conversation with Blue Margin is so important, because I think that it achieves that simplicity. But it's its data. Where do I get my data? How do I pull that data? What data is important? What's not important? How do I? How do I transform my business into a data centric organization that truly acts upon the information being delivered in my organization. That's where we're going. That's what you have to do. And and we need solutions to be able to do that. And and solutions that are easy. Yeah, I can turn it around. Alright, a couple of things that you need to put on your calendar, we've got some conferences coming up, we're going to be broadcasting live from the first one that we're going to be broadcasting from is the IoT solutions World Congress, it's in the end of January, it's going to be a great event. Of course, at that event, they talk about IoT, they talk about AI, they talk about data analytics, they talk about digital twin, virtual twin, you name it, it's it's being discussed there, and plenty of opportunities for you to educate. Because if you're in industry, this market is just just ticking along at a blistering pace. And you need to make sure that you stay current with your knowledge. And then of course, as I always say, find those companies, those individuals so that you can collaborate. That's important to trust it, trust it, so that you can innovate, because you need to, because we depend on you. And so it's a great time to be an industry and put that one down on the bank. Because it is all right. And we're going to have a lot going on at industrial talk. And you're saying you're so Scott, how do I how do I get involved with industrial talk? Well, you just go to industrial talk.com, you reach out to me. And if you have a story to tell, and you need to tell that story, and it benefits people, which it does, because you're an industry professional. Let me know, let's get you on the podcast. If you're going I'm going to have all the list of conferences and then some out there on industrial talk. So if you're going to be at one of those conferences, and you're saying Scott, I'm gonna do a live Yeah, let me know. I can't read your mind. But I certainly love your story. So you got to let me know you got to be forthright and upfront with that. All right. Here we go. Jon Thompson. Blue Margin is the company and the form that is filled out again, if you're going to be on this program, you're going to have to fill out this form because you need to make it simple for me to be able to look at and say, Oh, I get it. All right. Pretty cool. That's a great topic. I think the real component to this conversation that is really needed is the ability to be able to see that data from across, cross, let's say your legacy systems across your businesses, and be able to have those, that that information, boom, right there in a dashboard. Pretty cool stuff. All right. Enjoy the conversation with Jon. All right, Jon, welcome to industrial talk. How are you doing today? Doing great, Scott,

05:33

thanks for having me.

05:35

It's great. I'm pretty excited about this conversation, we're gonna be talking a little bit about insights into your business, looking at data, being able to sort of track that in a dashboard type setting, because you need a listener, that's you, I'm pointing at you, right? They're pointing at you. You need to make better decisions. And you need data, you need insights, you need that ability to be able to do that. And Jon, and Blue Margin, bring that to the table. Before we get into that conversation, Jon, for the listeners, give us a little background on you. Why you're such a great professional and a little bit about Blue Margin. And then we're going to talk a little bit about the solutions we're talking here.

06:14

Yeah, sure. So I went to school out east Colby College in Waterville, Maine, froze my butt off. But enjoyed that then went to the Peace Corps in Africa to counteract that weather was a game warden, which obviously led directly into business. When I came back, my brother and I had cell phone dealerships, and we ended up deciding to do a.com. Back when that was all the rage, we went out and raised some venture capital and built a business that analyzed telecom expenses for large enterprises back when that was a significant line item. And after about four years, we attracted the attention of a private equity backed backer, one equity partners, we became the platform company of a five business roll up, and suddenly had 500 employees, my brother was a CEO, I was doing biz dev. And we found that despite the fact that he is a Excel geek to the extreme, our instrumentation was lacking. And we found ourselves spending like, like, half our time managing the board, as we put it, and the rest of the time trying to figure out which way it was up. And that experience, and now this business, Blue Margin, where we've had 200 Plus clients, we have found that our basic hypothesis is that at the root of most, if not all business problems, is poor visibility somewhere, whether that's job ownership or alignment between business units, or accountability to the outcomes of the business, that kind of thing. And so that's what got us going.

07:50

But my legacy systems are super important. So you know, I'm not gonna let them go. I like that spreadsheet. Yeah, right. No spreadsheets, a lot of time and effort in that spreadsheet that creating those macros, and the tabs and all that stuff. They're done. For, for clarity sake, here, we've talked about private equity, PE, we've talked about venture capital briefly, for the listeners, give us a little differentiation between a venture capital in a private equity.

08:20

Yeah. So venture capital is just earlier in the growth phase of a company, sometimes pre revenue, sometimes pre profit. Private Equity tends to come in later, typically, in the mid market, maybe 50 million to a billion in revenue. And so they're looking to take an established business, often a non rationalized industry, if you will, or a niche, whether that's, you know, pet food supplies, or you name it in industrial this or that, where there's all kinds of entrepreneur owners out there, and no one has really turned it into the Toys R Us of their niche. And so they look to do that roll up, get those efficiencies of scale, increase the value of the company significantly, and then sell it again.

09:06

Thank you. Yeah, that makes complete and utter sense. I like that. All right. Let's talk a little bit about data. Let's talk a little bit about having that insight. You're absolutely correct. I think that many companies struggle with visibility. And then it might be visibility, but it's 45 days late. And then by that time that the problem is festered into full blown, full blown infection. And so take us through how you layer I've got all these legacy systems, right? I've got my ERP and then maybe I've got my asset management platform over here, and I've got this and the other and I got this spreadsheet and I got and I'm not I'm not shooting any of those platforms down. How do you layer and consolidate to create that vision? The API's take us through that.

09:57

Yeah, it's particularly relevant in in private equity where you often have a buy and build model where you're not just organically growing the business through new markets and better sales and higher productivity. But you're also adding new companies to fill out your offering and to consolidate for economies of scale. And so you've got these new business units coming on, they have their own ERP or their own homegrown whatever. And you're trying to integrate them just you know, gluing together companies doesn't get you the impact, you want to integrate them. And that can take some time, it's very disruptive, if you've ever deployed an ERP system I hated you may have FYI. Yeah, it can. It can take you to your knees for sure. So instead of saying, We're going to wait the 18 months till we get this integrated, you can integrate at the data layer and create a virtual single view of the business and get everyone focused on those consolidated numbers. And so we'll tap into those various systems with API's, as you said, various data connectors, pull that into a central database, and then connect that to whatever reporting you want. In our case, we're a Microsoft shop, gold partners and Microsoft's we have their high competency rating, we don't actually make any revenue from Microsoft, but we'd like to train. So we've been on it for quite some time. And then we produce reports that the connection to that central database sustains and is automatically updated as new data is entered into those transactional systems further downstream, or upstream. And on a daily basis, whoever the target is, the user gets an update of that dashboard via their email, or they can log into the Power BI system or wherever you want to place those dashboards so that they can see up to the day, here's what's happening, not dissimilar to a scoreboard at a sporting event where you have all the fans and coaches and, and players really glued to that that information. And it's not extraneous information, it is the critical info, they need to know what to do next to win the game. So that's what we

12:07

Yeah. And I hear what you're saying. And that's all good. But there's still, I think there's a lot of heavy lifting in defining and deciding which data is important. I might be, I might just be married to this data. But really, is that data important? How do you walk a client through? Now this is important, this is important. I know that you love this one. But that's not important. How do you walk us through that?

12:32

So the typical process, one of the main stumbling blocks that companies run into as they try to use their data and get better visibility, which is every company is they'll send out a analyst or report writer to talk to the various subject subject matter experts around the company and say what metrics matter to you. And they create a catalogue of that. And then they go back to the lab, and they build reports that display those metrics and say, Here you go. And that invariably, because we've tried it, ends in this, or results in this endless tail chasing where the the person that requested the report says, Oh, thanks. Not quite what I was thinking. And in fact, seeing these numbers up in lights has given me new insight, I need to now have these questions answered in context, and I forgot about that goes back, and you never get there. And adoption is is marginal, and the impact is anemic. So having learned that lesson more times than we'd like to admit, when a client says, Here's what we want to see for our sales funnel, or the gap in our projection in sales, or whatever the case is, we start out with the end goal. So we say what is it you're looking to impact for the outcome in your business? Is it? Is it total sales? Is it sales by customers, that customer lifetime value? Is a diversity of products and services that each customer buys? Is it making sure that your best customers are well taken care of? What is it and they will outline those? Here's the things that matter most for us to get where we're going in the next one to three years. And then we work backwards from that outcome. We'd like to say, what's the measurement of it now? Where does it need to be? And when do you think you can get it to that point by when? And then working backwards from there? What are the drivers that most influenced that outcome? And who do they map to? who's accountable for those drivers? Whether it's production efficiency, or salespeople, and their outreach activities, or you name it? And then we look at where's the data come from for that? And is that the most salient information? Is that the highest impact metric that will influence that outcome? Or is it a nice to have? Since we have the data, we'll put it in there. We get that a lot where customers say, well, that's just informational. And that sets off a red flag or says it shouldn't just be information and you don't see a baseball scoreboard with just informational stuff. It's the things you have to know to progress. And so we pressure test that quite a bit. And one more comment, we'll do a quick what we call a wireframe. It's a sketch or a storyboard. Here's the dashboard based on what we've gathered that you're trying to achieve by this time, here's the drivers that influence that. Let's go through it and ask the questions. If this was in the red, rather than the green, or if it's in the yellow, what does that spur as far as questions or decisions or actions? And what is that next piece of information you need? So you see that your sales are lagging? Your first question is I want to see sales by product category, and see where my problem areas are. And then I want to filter to those. And my very next question is, show me the sales teams and who's doing well with those and who isn't? Okay, let me focus on the isn't filter to those now, let me see a list of the salespeople and let me see their history of sales and how they're doing...