By partnering with Clear iQ, Big Ass Fans streamlined its reporting environment and built a single source of truth through a unified analytics platform—giving leadership daily visibility into performance, reducing manual effort, and enabling faster, more confident decision-making across the business.
About Big Ass Fans
Big Ass Fans is a leading manufacturer of high-performance ceiling fans and airflow solutions for commercial, industrial, and residential spaces. As the business continued to grow, leadership took a proactive approach to ensure its data and reporting capabilities could scale alongside the organization.
For CFO Nick Freihofer and the leadership team, the objective was clear: make financial and operational data easier to access, easier to understand, and consistently aligned across teams—so leaders could spend less time reconciling numbers and more time making informed decisions.
The Opportunity: Creating a Single Source of Truth for Faster, More Confident Decisions
As Big Ass Fans expanded, data and reporting naturally evolved across teams and systems. While information was available, it was often viewed through different lenses, with teams using varying definitions, reports, and formats to answer similar questions.
This created an opportunity to:
- Streamline reporting across the organization
- Establish consistent definitions and metrics
- Improve speed and confidence in daily decision-making
“There were multiple ways of looking at the same information,” Nick explained. “We wanted to make it easier for everyone to understand where the numbers were coming from and what they meant for the business.”
Leadership saw value in bringing reporting onto a single platform–a single source of truth–that could support alignment, clarity, and more effective daily management.
Why Big Ass Fans Chose Clear iQ
Big Ass Fans selected Clear iQ based on both proven experience and approach. Clear iQ had successfully delivered analytics solutions for other Madison Industries organizations, including Nortek Data Center Cooling (DCC), which gave Big Ass Fans confidence from the outset.
Just as important was how Clear iQ engaged with the team. Senior leadership was directly involved, the team asked thoughtful, business-focused questions, and they demonstrated a strong understanding of how organizations operate in practice—not just in theory.
“David’s involvement is firsthand,” Nick said. “That gave me a lot of comfort knowing the work wasn’t being outsourced.”
Clear iQ also committed to building the solution within Big Ass Fans’ existing technology stack using Power BI, ensuring continuity, scalability, and long-term ownership for the organization.
The Solution: A Business-First Analytics Platform in Power BI
Clear iQ partnered closely with Big Ass Fans to design and implement an analytics solution tailored to how the business actually runs. Rather than simply delivering dashboards, the focus was on creating a platform that leadership would actively use.
That meant:
- Standardizing metrics and terminology across teams
- Making trusted data easily accessible
- Translating business priorities into clear, actionable insights
Clear iQ took a proactive, hands-on approach—“taking the bull by the horns,” as Nick described—to ensure the solution was both technically sound and immediately useful to leadership.
Implementation & Adoption: Fast, Smooth, and Built to Last
The project was completed in approximately 14 weeks, a timeline that stood out to Big Ass Fans.
“Given the team’s existing priorities, building something of this caliber internally would have taken significantly longer. Clear iQ was able to deliver the solution in just three months.”
The implementation followed a phased rollout that supported adoption and change management. Throughout the process, Clear iQ remained highly responsive, addressing questions quickly and helping refine the solution as needed.
The platform went live in November 2025 and quickly became part of the daily rhythm for leadership. Nick now uses the analytics platform every day, and usage continues to expand across the organization.
The Results: Greater Visibility, Time Savings, and Stronger Alignment
The impact was immediate. Leadership now receives daily push reports with key metrics, providing real-time visibility into performance and enabling quicker responses to day-to-day changes.
“I wake up to three or four push reports every morning,” Nick shared. “That’s not something we had before. It’s taken work off the team, and the information is right at your fingertips.”
Additional benefits include:
- Saving 20–30 minutes each morning by eliminating manual report creation
- Stronger alignment across teams through shared metrics and definitions
- Clearer insight into what happened yesterday, what needs attention today, and how the team is tracking for the rest of the month
“Everybody understands where we stand,” Nick said. “That level of clarity has made a real difference.”
Together, these improvements established a single source of truth that leadership and teams can rely on—supporting more confident, coordinated decision-making across the organization.
Looking Ahead: Expanding Impact Across the Organization
With a strong foundation in place, Big Ass Fans is focused on expanding adoption and continuing to refine the platform over the next 90–180 days. Plans include extending access to a broader group of users, incorporating feedback to enhance dashboards, and sunsetting legacy tools to keep reporting streamlined and consistent.
The goal is to ensure insights remain easy to consume, actionable, and directly relevant to how teams work every day.
A True Partnership Built for Impact
For Big Ass Fans, Clear iQ delivered more than an analytics platform—they delivered a partnership grounded in business understanding, speed, and accountability.
“They have the passion and energy to build something they truly believe will help you,” Nick said. “They’re not just creating a solution that’s going to collect dust.”
By working directly with senior leadership and staying deeply engaged throughout the project, Clear iQ helped Big Ass Fans build an analytics foundation designed to support smarter decisions today—and continued growth in the future.
