The Business: The Company is the direct sales portal of a global consumer electronics leader. End customer can access it through Internet, Contact Centers and Retail Stores channels. Managing all aspects of this diverse business, where products have limited shelf life, is exciting, challenging and data intensive.
The Challenge:
Operational data was gathered from a large number of disparate data sources spanning: Budgets, Campaign Management, Website, Phone switches, Service centers, Oracle ERP and retail Point-Of-Sales. Different business groups independently aggregated data and generated reports using different methodologies. The resultant information was costly, inconsistent, inaccurate and unreliable. Management and business groups could not rely on this data and in some cases did not have the data to make day-to-day business decisions. The Company needed a consistent, timely and reliable data aggregation, reporting and analysis toolset that allows the management and all business groups to plan, monitor, and analyze the health of the business and make better decisions across all customer touch points.
The Vision:
Develop a world-class business intelligence solution that will enable the Company management and business groups to make better and faster decisions with consistent, accurate, timely, and complete transactional information. Implement management dashboards with key metrics to monitor daily business performance. Empower business users with desktop and web-based analytical tools to access information on-demand, analyze plan vs. actual performance, and create relatively accurate plans.
The Solution: A world class business intelligence solution was implemented. Key transactional data sources comprising demand generation, budgets, order management, web click stream, promotions, phone switches, campaign management, products, discounts/ coupons, returns and warranties, point-of-sale, and service centers were integrated. Transactional data was obtained nightly from source systems and loaded into a staging area. An Informatica based ETL and data quality management process was in place to populate a data mart. The Company has a rich analytical environment with years of historical data spanning across major business functions, and a cutting edge suite of Cognos analytical and reporting tools. Business users, spread across North America and in Japan, can access daily transactional information, monitor performance through dashboards, slice & dice the data, and conduct in-depth analysis of business using different business perspectives across major custom touch points.
The Results:
Within 90 days of operations, the solution achieved its payback as follows:
- 5% increase in overall sales
- 10% decrease in return rate for Inside Sales channel
- $500,000 in savings by automating report development, and distribution
Other benefits include:
- Faster access (under 24 hours) to reliable business information.
- Targeted campaigns and tracking their effectiveness across multiple channels.
- Measure Order Cycle Time, Avg. Order Value, Avg. Selling Price, Attachment rates, Configure-To-Orders, Customer Valuation, Coupons, Financing.
- Click stream analysis: visit-to-buy ratio, abandonment, customer segment
- Tracking and analyzing accessory sales, warranties, freight, and conversion rates
- Improved product management & inventory planning
- Measure service centers performance
The Tools: Erwin, Oracle RDBMS, Informatica PowerCenter, Cognos ReportNet, Enterprise Planning, PowerPlay, Windows 2000, and HP-UX. |
