How RapidSOS built a data-driven team with Abacum

What is the impact of Abacum?

By implementing Abacum, Richard and his team were able to spend 80% less time on reporting, without having to hire 2-3 additional FTEs.

This freed up more hours in the week for them to invest in transforming the way data points for financial, operational, product, sales, and more were leveraged across RapidSOS. 

1. Aligning product development to sales pipeline

One of the challenges RapidSOS had with data before implementing Abacum was that not every stakeholder had access to all datasets. For example, Salesforce wasn’t a company-wide tool, so most teams had a limited view of pipeline.

“Our users don’t have time to go into 10 different platforms to view statistics and then try and marry those datasets together”, said Richard.

Now, his team can ingest that pipeline data into Abacum to identify the products driving the most active demand. 

Use Case Example: Over time, they are working to build a combined dashboard where the product team uses real-time pipeline data vs. Jira product data to inform development decisions and ensure that each hour invested into development yields the best ROI in terms of active pipeline.

2. Creating autonomy for budgeting

The team completely revamped the way budgets were managed across the business, establishing guardrails but giving budget holders autonomy over budget allocation.

Each budget holder has their own dashboard within Abacum to streamline BvA. They can also drill down into the underlying numbers to better understand variances and use data to inform decisions. 

Use Case Example: Events are now broken down into size as well as geographical location, and budgeted for based on historical data. This allows the marketing team to allocate resources more strategically and identify events with the highest ROI to drive opportunity creation and pipeline. 

3. Transforming the demand for data

As Richard and his team built more spaces in Abacum, they came to realize just how powerful granular data can be for decision-makers across the business.

“We found that everybody wanted to engage with Abacum once we got them on it. I think they’ve always wanted this insight into their budget. We have one department who’s in every day!” 

Abacum helped Richard and his team change the culture within RapidSOS to be a data first organization; getting departments thinking about how they can best allocate resources. 

And because of this demand, it created a pull effect for eliminating data pollution.

“People are starting to ask all the “What if” questions and getting granular with their curiosity. And to get those answers, they understand the need to better prepare data so they’re really partnering with us to build a more robust data platform and minimize data pollution.”

These insights drive high efficiency over the management of departmental budgets. Budget owners can intercept potentially expensive BvA variances quickly, plan headcount with strategic precision, assess vendor overspend, and more.