Fysios has been a QuickBI customer for several years and has systematically built a culture of data-driven management throughout the organization. In our video interview, Fysios CFO Jari Lampinen explains how data is used at Fysios, what impact it has had, and how the collaboration with QuickBI has worked in practice.
Lampinen was also interviewed for an earlier blog article. Further down this page you can read more about how Fysios has been able to develop its processes and gain competitive advantage through QuickBI and data-driven decision-making.
QuickBI helps Fysios lead with data
Fysios uses QuickBI’s products and services extensively for data-driven management. Data is drawn from a wide variety of sources and used across all functions at Fysios — from therapists and line managers to regional directors and the executive team. Managers use the information in their day-to-day leadership and supervisory work. Data is pulled from patient information systems, of which Diarium is the most important for Fysios. In addition, data from financial management and payroll systems as well as other smaller data sources is loaded into the QuickBI data warehouse.
Lampinen notes that the most active report users are the executive team and regional managers. “Fysios’s management culture is built on data-driven leadership. Data allows us to see patterns that therapists may not notice in their day-to-day work, and to address issues we previously couldn’t,” says Lampinen. He adds that managers and therapists regularly review relevant data together. “This enables us to develop therapists’ working methods, client relationship management, and the overall client experience.”
Data reveals patterns and drives process improvement
Thanks to data obtained through QuickBI, Fysios has been able to model a wide range of phenomena related to customer management and client behavior. Interesting differences and correlations between therapists have been identified, and by leveraging this information Fysios has been able to create manageable, repeatable processes. Lampinen explains that the data has revealed areas where targeted improvements can directly influence business outcomes and profitability. These findings are reviewed at executive level, where decisions are made about which themes to focus on each year and which actions would have the greatest impact. Managers receive coaching on these themes three times a year at dedicated management days, and in turn coach their therapists individually. This ensures insights flow down through the organization. Every team member can review their own KPIs, making it easier to manage both themselves and their team.
Through QuickBI, Fysios has also significantly accelerated a range of financial reconciliation tasks, invoice creation, and verification processes. Payroll and marketing processes have become smoother as well. Lampinen notes, however, that process savings are secondary — the focus has been on how to add value to leadership, strategic direction, and organizational understanding. With QuickBI, Fysios has been able to create entirely new automated processes that deliver added value to both clients and therapists, including services that Lampinen believes competitors currently cannot match.
Data supports decision-making and improves profitability and efficiency
According to Lampinen, QuickBI’s system has already paid for itself. Improvements and checkpoints introduced into processes have returned the investment in development within a relatively short time. The more important financial gain, however, has been the development of data-driven management and the data that guides decision-making. “The value of data-driven leadership is greater than the value of more obvious cost savings,” says Lampinen. Measuring the impact of any single factor on positive performance is difficult when, for example, leadership has been simultaneously reformed across the whole organization. Lampinen’s view is nonetheless that leveraging data has improved profitability and efficiency and supported the company’s growth. Fysios has, for instance, identified areas for development through data that would have gone unnoticed without it.
Comprehensive up-to-date data proves essential in crisis situations
After the COVID-19 pandemic began, it was critical for Fysios to be able to monitor the situation using pre-built reports, kept current down to the daily level. Lampinen describes these reports as essential when making adaptation decisions and other critical calls. A clear picture of the overall situation was available at all times from the moment the pandemic began. Changes in the sector were rapid and severe, but recovery was also reasonably swift. Lampinen says that the most important thing during the pandemic was the ability to continuously monitor and analyze the situation using reports. The impact of COVID-19 at Fysios was visible by client segment as well as geographically, and differences in client behavior are still apparent today.
QuickBI delivers solutions to development needs quickly and flexibly
Lampinen highlights QuickBI’s particular strength in rapid development of new reports when needed: “QuickBI’s way of working is genuinely flexible and efficient — they know our data and can build new reports in a matter of hours. Even bringing in new data sources and transforming them into reports is a matter of hours or days, not weeks.” According to Lampinen, QuickBI’s development cycle is very fast, with priorities and timelines set collaboratively.
The ability to push data out to marketing automation has also been highly valuable. The data coming from QuickBI is relevant, digestible, and known to be reliable. Fysios also processes patient data, so filtering out confidential information is absolutely essential. Having this handled correctly makes daily work significantly easier, says Lampinen. He also notes that various solutions can be implemented more flexibly when data security has been properly addressed between the patient information system and the data warehouse.
Fysios is owned by private equity investors. Lampinen says that the owners and board have been very satisfied with the development of reporting and data-driven management. “The board considers the era before we managed with BI tool data as a different time altogether.” Lampinen recommends QuickBI to any company grappling with BI challenges. He particularly values the fact that data sources are visible to the client. “The transparency in the product is excellent from our perspective.”
QuickBI adapts to different user groups and use cases
One of QuickBI’s strengths is that reporting can be produced cost-effectively for both demanding and occasional users. QuickBI makes it possible for different users to visualize reports using different tools — such as Data Studio or Tableau — making QuickBI entirely tool-agnostic. Effective solutions have been found for even the most demanding reporting needs of Fysios’s leadership and line managers. The product’s core strength, according to Lampinen, is that many different reporting challenges can be combined and solved within a single interface, while still appearing unified and clear to the end user.
Fysios also uses data and reports to make tactical-level forecasts and apply them to business planning. Lampinen notes that near-term forecasting works at a very granular level. At the strategic level, data has primarily been used to understand the financial impact of leadership goals and targets. On the financial side, QuickBI has enabled budget consolidation and visualization. QuickBI’s various reporting solutions also support client-facing reporting, and the ability to demonstrate to clients how well things are managed is a useful sales tool. Lampinen considers QuickBI’s solutions and data-driven management to be a significant competitive advantage.
Lampinen praises the QuickBI team as highly skilled and, more importantly, exceptionally service-minded and dedicated. Client wishes are listened to carefully and changes are implemented quickly — yet the work is always done thoroughly and with durable solutions, meaning there has been no need to go back and fix things, and the overall system remains clean and clear. “There’s a genuine sense that every team member is wholeheartedly committed to solving our reporting challenges,” says Lampinen.
