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Chapter 4 • Business Reporting, Visual Analytics, and Business Performance Management 191

As the color coding indicates, while the monthly support expenses are well within the
normal ranges, the other expenses are in the red (or darker) region, indicating excessive
values. The geographic map on the bottom right shows the distribution of sales at the
country level throughput the world. Behind these graphical icons there are variety of
mathematical functions aggregating numerious data points to their highest level of mean-
ingul figures. By clicking on these graphical icons, the consumer of this information can
drill down to more granular levels of information and data.
Dashboards are used in a wide variety of businesses for a wide variety of reasons.
For instance, in Application Case 4.5, you will find the summary of a successful imple-
mentation of information dashboards by the Dallas Cowboys football team.

Application Case 4.5

Dallas Cowboys Score Big with Tableau and Teknion
Founded in 1960, the Dallas Cowboys are a pro- Added Luisi, “Of course, Tableau worked very
fessional American football team headquartered closely with us and the Cowboys during the entire
in Irving, Texas. The team has a large national project. Together, we made sure that the Cowboys
following, which is perhaps best represented by could achieve their reporting and analytical goals in
the NFL record for number of consecutive games at record time.”
sold-out stadiums. Now, for the first time, the Dallas Cowboys
are able to monitor their complete merchandising
challenge activities from manufacture to end customer and see
not only what is happening across the life cycle, but
Bill Priakos, COO of the Dallas Cowboys Merchan- drill down even further into why it is happening.
dising Division, and his team needed more visibility Today, this BI solution is used to report and
into their data so they could run it more profitably. analyze the business activities of the Merchandising
Microsoft was selected as the baseline platform for Division, which is responsible for all of the Dallas
this upgrade as well as a number of other sales, logis- Cowboys’ brand sales. Industry estimates say that
tics, and e-commerce applications. The Cowboys the Cowboys generate 20 percent of all NFL mer-
expected that this new information architecture chandise sales, which reflects the fact they are the
would provide the needed analytics and reporting. most recognized sports franchise in the world.
Unfortunately, this was not the case, and the search According to Eric Lai, a ComputerWorld
began for a robust dashboarding, analytics, and reporter, Tony Romo and the rest of the Dallas
reporting tool to fill this gap.
Cowboys may have been only average on the foot-
solution and results ball field in the last few years, but off the field,
especially in the merchandising arena, they remain
Tableau and Teknion together provided real-time America’s team.
reporting and dashboard capabilities that exceeded
the Cowboys’ requirements. Systematically and
methodically the Teknion team worked side by side Questions for Discussion
with data owners and data users within the Dallas 1. How did the Dallas Cowboys use information
Cowboys to deliver all required functionality, on visualization?
time and under budget. “Early in the process, we 2. What were the challenge, the proposed solution,
were able to get a clear understanding of what it and the obtained results?
would take to run a more profitable operation for
the Cowboys,” said Teknion Vice President Bill Sources: Tableau, Case Study, tableausoftware.com/learn/
Luisi. “This process step is a key step in Teknion’s stories/tableau-and-teknion-exceed-cowboys-requirements
(accessed February 2013); and E. Lai, “BI Visualization Tool Helps
approach with any client, and it always pays huge Dallas Cowboys Sell More Tony Romo Jerseys,” ComputerWorld,
dividends as the implementation plan progresses.” October 8, 2009.

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