Business Intelligence Companies & Consultants in Wichita, KS

Overview

Cornerstone Data, Inc. is a Wichita, Kansas consultancy that helps organizations get practical value out of the information they already collect. Its roots go back to 2008, when founder Joy Eakins started the business that later took the Cornerstone Data name. From its downtown Wichita office, the firm works with companies and nonprofits of varying size and sector. It reports a client footprint reaching roughly 160 cities across 27 states.

The firm's central idea is that numbers only make sense when viewed alongside the people and workflows that generate them. It does not deliver technology alone. Instead, Cornerstone pairs technical infrastructure work with efforts to build a healthy data culture, meaning the habits and collaboration that let analysts, executives and other decision-makers turn raw figures into usable insight. It positions this combination as a route to better decision intelligence and competitive advantage.

Business intelligence services

Buyers can engage the team across a broad range of analytics and data management needs, including:

• Data analytics consulting aimed at pinpointing which specific changes will move results toward targets
• Data engineering that pulls information out of separate systems into a secure, transformed data model ready for analysis
• Data visualization and dashboard development, plus data science work that diagnoses causes, forecasts outcomes and recommends actions
• AI data consulting
• Data strategy tied directly to the client's business strategy
• Data security and governance, including defining roles, standards and processes and configuring security to meet requirements such as HIPAA
• Data storage and hosting guidance for both structured and unstructured data
• Data culture development and leadership guidance through its Leading the Data Journey offering

How engagements work

Cornerstone describes a three-stage process. Work begins with a free consultation in which the team learns what questions the client is trying to answer, what data exists and where problems have surfaced. The firm then designs a tailored solution, building or strengthening processes for collecting, protecting and applying analytics in support of strategic priorities.

Finally, it trains client staff and helps put organizational structures in place so the team can keep using its data independently. Typical problems it targets include untrustworthy figures, information that is slow to locate or interpret, dashboards that go unused, and large volumes of data that yield little insight.

The company also publishes a blog, a resource library with reports and calculators, and a monthly series on topics such as adoption, preparation and staging, leadership, and compliance and ethics.

Leadership and background

Founder and CEO Joy Eakins holds a master's degree in applied mathematics from the University of Colorado, a master's in theological studies from Gateway Seminary, and a bachelor's in mathematics with a computer science minor from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Before launching the firm, she built programming, database and analytics experience at employers including Avaya, Milliman, Bell Labs/Lucent Technologies and ICB Consulting. She served on Wichita's school board between 2013 and 2018. She has chaired education efforts for FlagshipKansas.Tech. Since 2016 she has sat on the board of Wichita's regional chamber of commerce, where she is chair-elect.

The company earned the Wichita Chamber's small business honor for 2015. Eakins has been recognized by the Wichita Business Journal for women's leadership in technology in 2020 and in business in 2016.

Clients quoted on the site include leaders from the Kansas Leadership Center, Forvis's Wichita office, Envision, and TEC Systems Group, which is also a formal partner. The firm states that it values excellence, integrity and respect. When hiring, it looks especially for curiosity and an eye for patterns.