Telemetry as a key to increase productivity: empower® data insights
Have you ever wondered how companies like Microsoft or Apple come up with ideas for new software developments? The answer often lies in the unseen but powerful world of telemetry data. This data, which is continuously collected from millions of devices around the world, gives the technology giants valuable insights into the behavior and usage of their software in real time.
empower® also uses the benefits of telemetry data for itself and its customers. From customized training to individual business cases, telemetry data provides the basis for numerous optimizations. But how exactly does this data collection work and what data is collected?
Telemetry = real usage data
Telemetry data is real usage data that is automatically collected by a system and transmitted to a central location. The term “telemetry” comes from the Greek and is composed of “tele” (far) and “metron” (measure), meaning “remote measurement”. Telemetry data is used in many industries, including aerospace, medicine, and especially the software industry.
Software companies collect telemetry data to understand how users interact with their software. This data can include information about which features are used most often, how long users keep an application open, what menu items they access, and what workflows they go through.
Other benefits that can be derived from telemetry data include:
- Proactive problem detection
- Enhanced user experience
- Faster innovation
- Enhanced security
Telemetry in empower®
We at empower® also use telemetry by collecting usage data from empower® customers . This data includes events such as user interactions (e.g. button clicks) and system events (e.g. errors) that are collected anonymously and sent periodically to a central telemetry server. There, it‘s analyzed on a per-customer, per-device basis to provide insight into software usage.
Telemetry is automatically enabled in all purchased empower® products and solutions (50+ licenses). However, you have the option to opt out for any of our solutions. That has no impact on performance or pricing.
Benefits of telemetry in empower®
- Calculate the business case: Telemetry enables accurate calculation of the time saved by using empower® This is critical to supporting a company’s business case. Analyzing how and how often people use individual features enables precise analysis of the time saved per user.
- Customized communication and training: Telemetry data clearly shows which functions are frequently used and which aren’t. This facilitates the development of tailored training and communication strategies to ensure that users realize the full potential of empower®.
- Targeted feature improvement: By analyzing telemetry data, the empower® development team can better understand which features users prefer and which may need to be improved or removed. This leads to continuous improvement of the software and a better user experience.
- Focus on adoption: Telemetry can reveal how many users are working with empower® on a regular basis. This is particularly useful for monitoring the success of a rollout and ensuring a high level of acceptance.
Technical details and data protection
Telemetry is enabled by default in empower® version 9.0 and above. It can be turned on or off at the company-wide level.
empower® anonymously collects events and actions triggered by users and send them to our telemetry server at regular intervals.
For each device that sends telemetry data, a unique, anonymous ID identifies that device. Individuals aren’t considered people, only devices. The anonymous device ID isn’t the same as the computer name but consists of a string randomly generated per device (or per user profile on a device in the case of a per-user installation). Two different devices used by the same person generate independent usage data from a telemetry perspective. All events transmitted to our telemetry server are correlated with available license keys to distinguish customers and devices.
We don’t collect personal information such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, file names, or content information such as what information is included in presentations and the like.
Anonymous device IDs are necessary to determine what percentage of users use the products and specific features. In this way, we can provide reports about how the company’s user base takes advantage of empower® without identifying individual users.
The Economic Impact Report
We created an Economic Impact Report for empower® that presents a concrete business case for a company with 10,000 employees, showing the software’s impact on productivity, costs, and brand consistency. The report is based on comprehensive telemetry data collected over a 12-month period from nearly 200,000 users across 983 companies. This data provides a detailed view of the use of the various empower® features and the resulting business outcomes.
How telemetry data influenced the Economic Impact Report
Telemetry data played a critical role in the creation of the Economic Impact Report. It made it possible to analyze the actual usage of empower® in real time. The data comes from the empower® devices, which anonymously record usage events such as clicking on features or creating documents.
All user interactions with empower® were recorded over a period of 12 months. That included, among other features, the layout tools, agenda creation, translation functions, and design check.
For each feature, we determined the average time saved by using empower® compared to completing the same task without empower®.
We applied those values to the number of users and frequency of use to calculate the total time saved.
Results of the Economic Impact Report
1. Time savings
10,000 empower® users can save a total of 26,088 hours per year, according to those representative calculations. Assuming an hourly wage of $40, that translates into financial savings of $1,043,500 per year in this example. The greatest time savings were achieved in reviewing presentations for corporate design errors, creating project plans, and converting presentations to a current template.
2. Return on investment
The report illustrates an impressive ROI of 407% over three years. In the first year, due to implementation costs, the ROI in this example is 267% and increases to 526% in the following years. This demonstrates that the investment in empower® quickly pays for itself.
3. Brand consistency
According to real-world telemetry, 91% of empower® users regularly use branded templates and content. This results in significantly improved brand perception in external documents and presentations. In addition, empower® significantly reduces the IT effort required to manage brand guidelines.
4. Cost efficiency
The total implementation and operating costs for the example organization with 10,000 licenses would have been $284,200 in the first year. In subsequent years, the cost could drop to $166,800 per year, underscoring the long-term cost effectiveness.
The full economic impact report can be accessed directly (PDF link) for more details and information:
Much more than a technical feature, telemetry is a strategic tool that enables companies to get the most out of empower®. Not only does it increase productivity and ROI, but it also supports the development and optimization of the software.
Just ask us for your company’s telemetry data and we’ll be happy to help you.
Telemetry for your business
Curious? We offer companies the opportunity to have a specific use case calculated for them by showing the effects of using empower® in detail. This can be especially interesting if you aren’t yet working with empower® but are considering it. Based on the telemetry data we can determine how much time empower® can potentially save your company. This allows us to quantify the economic benefits of empower® for your individual needs.
If you’re interested or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
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