Wizard Creek Case Study: Data Warehouse

Client industry:

Supermarket Chain

Names of business units affected:

Management and knowledge workers

Description of the problem situation:

The client was a successful enterprise with sophisticated systems and customer loyalty programs which created a need for more detailed information to make precise decisions about products, stores and marketing.

Description of the steps used to resolve the problem:

Determined that the best solution was to build a Data Warehouse from the vast amounts of data the supermarket chain kept, and to train the client 's knowledge workers in how to access the data warehouse using sophisticated tools.
Decided to start with a prototype as proof of concept and committed to delivery in 6 weeks.
Put together a Data Warehouse team comprised of hardware, software, data, and subject matter experts.
The Data Warehouse team analyzed the data, built a data model, and determined reporting requirements.
The team built systems to scrub the data, load data into the Data Warehouse, and trained the client 's knowledge workers to access the data.

Description of the outcome:

At the end of the 6 weeks, the company loaded up the corporate jet with all the key executives and flew to the Data Warehouse site for a series of presentations.
The executives were presented with report after report detailing precise product, store and market information. One example was a report showing the executives for the first time what the most profitable item in each store was, which incidentally was a bag of ice.

Description of the benefits realized by the client:

Company proceeded with a full Data Warehouse plan.

East Bay Hills

Photo by
Alex Bain

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