Dal-Tile overcomes manual processes and data silos with Domo.

Challenge: This tile manufacturer struggled to overcome manual processes and siloed systems.

Solution: Dal-Tile’s finance department was able to implement Domo across the organization with little IT assistance.

Impact: The company is able to use data to drive insights at 300 retail stores and international manufacturing plants.

You may not immediately recognize Dal-Tile’s name, but if you look down you’d surely recognize one of Dal-Tile’s products: this international manufacturer is responsible for selling one out of every three floor tiles in the U.S. However, when Joshua Stan joined the company as their director of finance, he was shocked to discover this $2.5 billion business was still run on Excel, with analysts downloading data through Microsoft Access from its data warehouse.

“To create reports, some of my folks were taking 20-40 hours to do a lot of routine tasks over and over and over again,” Stan remembers. “I knew there had to be a better way.”

Democratizing data.

After migrating to SAP from its legacy JD Edwards mainframe, the company had hoped to get a better solution in place. Instead, it discovered that it had extremely limited management reporting tools in place. After investigating 15 different BI tools, Stan chose Domo thanks to its ability to deliver a fully-integrated platform across the business.

“We use Domo everywhere,” said Stan. “We use it in finance, we use it in manufacturing, we use it in sales and logistics, and we use it in our retail locations. What I love about Domo is that it’s really democratizing data across the enterprise.”

The company was able to use Domo to automate report creation and delivery that before took days for an analyst to complete. It also gained the ability to provide mobile access to data, with the company estimating 50% of their Domo usage taking place on mobile devices. “We have 300 stores, and every day I hear from store managers and sales reps saying, ‘What did I do without Domo?’” said Stan.

Implementation without interruption.

Unlike other systems, Dal-Tile was able to implement Domo without having to wait on IT to make it a priority. “We didn’t require any IT support beyond getting system credentialing. It was basically two finance guys that took it upon themselves to deliver Domo to the entire enterprise,” noted Stan.

Dal-Tile launched with about 560 Domo users, growing to more than 1,100 users across the enterprise. Despite doubling its usage, Dal-Tile is able to support all those users with just one full-time person. Stan compared that to the company’s experience using other BI tools: “We have a BI team in IT that has over a dozen people working in Mexico and the U.S., and they haven’t been able to do what we’ve done with Domo in the same amount of time.”

Today, Dal-Tile uses Domo to manage data from three ERP systems: its main system of record SAP, its legacy JD Edwards system that it still requires to run some parts of the business, and an Oracle system for its operations in Mexico. Domo allows the company to combine data from these disconnected systems together for increased insight. “The thing I love about Domo is that it doesn’t care where the data comes from,” said Stan. “You just pipe it in and then use it however you want.”

By connecting this data together, Dal-Tile has been able to uncover insights it uses to drive decision-making for its maintenance spending, a significant line item for the company. “Before Domo, we didn’t have line of sight into where millions of dollars in spend was going compared to the budget until weeks after the month closed,” said Stan. “With Domo, we can merge our SAP and JD Edwards data and see our spend on a real-time basis. This helps plant controllers and maintenance managers make smarter decisions about repair spending while allowing everyone to be held more accountable.”

Stan attributes Dal-Tile’s success with Domo to both the product and the people behind it. “Domo has been a true partner, with our customer success manager working tirelessly to help us adapt the product to how we need it,” said Stan. “That said, 95% of Domo you can use without knowing anything technical, which is how two finance guys could implement Domo and roll it out to 1,100 users.”