Supernova Award Category

The Problem

We had a number of business problems that spanned the operations, sales, and HR departments. These departments used different reporting solutions that were mostly made up of Excel pivot tables so information was incomplete and sharing was very limited.

We never had a way to maintain a single view of our data across SHC in order to create comprehensive and accurate reports necessary to run our business.

The Solution

In order to seamlessly integrate this data into one source from which we could generate these reports, we quickly realized the need for a platform that could help us visualize the data throughout its lifecycle by empowering our users with the appropriate level of access.

We use Pentaho’s Data Integration engine to pull data from multiple sources. To cope with the challenge of pulling and integrating such diversified sets of data, we used the Pentaho data refinery approach to blend/clean the data from the various sources. The data displayed on the dashboard, in all levels of aggregation, now allows for a much more informed, data-driven decision making process.

The results

By working with Pentaho, we are able to leverage a metadata driven framework which is easy to maintain, and could be easily leveraged in other business areas.

Both of the reports mentioned above were built and designed the same way – incorporating KPIs and allowing the reports to be shared and used by stakeholders in all levels of the organization - manager level all the way up to SHC’s CEO.

The compliance report specifically had an enormous impact on how the organization drives compliance. With the level of visibility provided by the new PRD report managers can now see exactly which compliance courses their team members need to complete in order to meet a monthly goal. Prior to the launch of the report monthly goals did not exist and an overall low level of completions across the organization put SHC in a vulnerable legal position. Since the launch of the compliance report, more than 75% of associates are now on track to complete their compliance programs by the end of the year. 

Metrics

The Pentaho Compliance report allows the entire SHC population to view compliance data in one report that is updated daily. The report visually singles out pockets of the organization that are not in compliance. From a metric standpoint, completions have been up 23% from last year and the majority of businesses that make up SHC are on track to complete they compliance training by the end of the year.

The Pentaho Returns Report allows stakeholders to identify which systems returns are being processed through, by whom, and after how many days. Armed with this information, managers can easily identify areas in which they need to act on in order to reduce returns. The number of returns processed post deadline has decreased over 30% in the first two months after the report was launched. The impact of the Returns Report on our operational metrics is unparalleled.

The Technology

Pentaho Data Integration and Pentaho Business Analytics

Disruptive Factor

While there are multiple initiatives that contributed to SHC’s improvement in the field of compliance, the Pentaho report clearly had a significant impact on reducing such costs. Using the report we are now displaying a monthly goal for every employee across SHC, where before the report had just shown the count of contents to be completed. The combination of a much more user-friendly interface, and the use of stretch goals that contribute greatly to associates’ motivation to complete contents, our report has improved company wide completions by over 23% (YTD). 

The Pentaho Returns Report allows operational managers the opportunity to track returns across multiple sales channels like never before. Since launch, the report has also been used by managers during coaching conversations. From that standpoint the Returns report didn’t only impact the bottom line of the organization but also had a significant impact on how managers facilitate coaching conversations using data.

Shining Moment

In the past year or so we were able to consistently deliver business results.  Our dashboards and reports are at such high level that we are now using Pentaho to service parts of the organization that are external to ours. For example, one of SHC's largest businesses- Shop Your Way- has requested that we build a dashboard so they can track their associates' performance in a specific metric that has great impact on top line performance.