How FedEx, Pizza Hut, American Eagle Outfitters, NHL, and Members 1st Credit Union, Use Data Analytics: Business Case Studies

Companies of all sizes analyze operational data at a surface level, but the growing availability and sophistication of data analytics tools have expanded the types of insights that businesses can gather. 

What are some of the most successful enterprises in the world doing to analyze their data most effectively? 

Read on to learn about some of the top data analytics software providers and how their customers are applying their tools.

Data Analytics: Enterprise Use Cases

• FedEx on Oracle Cloud
• Pizza Hut on AWS
• American Eagle Outfitters on Google Cloud
• NHL on SAP
• Members 1st Federal Credit Union on Microsoft Azure

Also read: Data Analytics Market Review 2021

FedEx on Oracle Cloud

In an industry where speed, efficiency, transparency, and accuracy are paramount to the customer experience, FedEx turned to the Oracle suite of cloud applications to improve its visibility on performance analytics and the overall shipment life cycle. Many of its innovations are focused on making enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain data available in real-time.

“The Oracle Analytics tools allow us to drill into the operations on an almost real-time basis and see what’s going on and evaluate how things are developing worldwide,” says Chris Wood, VP of business transformation, FedEx.

Industry: Shipping

Use Cases: ERP, enterprise performance management (EPM), supply chain management, AI-powered analytics, unified platform, platform scalability, cloud application optimization

Outcomes:

• Oracle Cloud’s advanced dashboard features and analytics tools enable complex cost analysis for finance operations
• FedEx standardized more than 220 operations with over 40 Oracle Cloud applications 
• More than 3,000 employees use Oracle Analytics Cloud for data-driven decision making that includes AI, machine learning, and service automation
• 2X faster speed to market for code deployments and other digital operations
• Complete virtual deployment of Oracle Cloud ERP software now possible and implemented in nine new instances during the COVID-19 pandemic

Read the full FedEx on Oracle Cloud case study here.

Pizza Hut on AWS

Pizza Hut is the largest pizza chain restaurant in the world, with a particularly large presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Pizza Hut’s Asian franchises were each analyzing their own data metrics and sending them into a central location to be consolidated. But the restaurant’s leadership wanted to find a solution that would be more efficient for tracking performance across the region. The chain’s primary goal with AWS was to create a single dashboard where authorized users could input, view, and create reports on different insights from the region.

“Within two months, we could see whether the region was hitting sales targets and performance goals with green and red indicators,” says Pin Yiing Kwok, APAC digital experience manager, Pizza Hut.

 “We could also drill down on any potential issues and identify what needed troubleshooting.”

Industries: Food, beverage

Use Cases: Data consolidation, quicker franchise performance insights, real-time visualization and analytics, business intelligence reporting, scalable data ecosystem

Outcome:

• Single dashboard consolidation of data from 2,800 stores and 15 countries
• Real-time consumer data and insights available to internal stakeholders
• Developed 20 business intelligence reports over five months
• Data pipeline advances make it possible to generate unique business intelligence reports in minutes
• AWS CloudTrail and AWS Organizations improve user access management, permission management, cost management, and compliance

Read the full Pizza Hut on AWS case study here.

American Eagle Outfitters on Google Cloud

American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) is a retailer that has long engaged with data analytics technologies, but it went to Google Cloud to improve its knowledge of customer behavior with more granular data analytics. By working with Google and a professional services firm, AEO updated its analytics setup and created a test environment to isolate different buyer data and determine what data is contributing to sales changes.

“We’ve been on the cutting edge with respect to fabrics, fashion, and overall product-line innovation,” says Jimmy Hunkele, director of data analytics at AEO. 

“Every year, we are making significant investments in marketing, merchandising, and in-store, and we need to make sure that we are making the right decisions on this digital frontier. Powerful solutions for analyzing large volumes of data with advanced analytics are critical to achieving this outcome.”

Industries: Retail, fashion, e-commerce

Use Cases: Big data analytics, data storage, scalability, growing processing power, data warehousing, reporting, embedded analytics

Outcomes:

• Developed centralized data storage for transaction, inventory, and web data that optimizes performance
• Established an analytics testing and deployment environment in four months
• Millions of dollars in savings through store testing and a cost-effective analytics platform
• BigQuery used to analyze customer site interactions in real-time on a large scale
• Reduced extract, transform, and load (ETL) times, furthered data consolidation, and optimized web analytics and testing platforms through a single system

Read the full American Eagle Outfitters on Google Cloud case study here. 

NHL on SAP

The National Hockey League (NHL) is one of the most popular professional sports leagues in the world. While most industry improvements are focused on the audience, the NHL turned to SAP’s analytics solutions to improve the coach and player experience. The league specifically worked with SAP to create a mobile application for real-time analytics to help coaches use data to coach their teams.

“SAP has proven to be a great partner in working with us on the development of the SAP-NHL Coaching Insights app,” says Dave Lehanski, SVP of development and innovation, NHL.

“SAP technologies, along with expert guidance from SAP Preferred Success, allowed us to quickly and effectively roll out the app with overall buy-in from everyone involved. We couldn’t ask for a better partner.” 

Industry: Professional sports

Use Cases: Mobile application development, real-time insights, smart data integration, business technology platform development

Outcomes:

• Development of the SAP-NHL Coaching Insights mobile app
• Real-time, decision-oriented player metrics available for coaches through SAP Mobile Services
• SAP Extension Suite and SAP HANA Cloud translate all in-game hockey data to the application
• A mission-critical system with rapid incident reporting
• Managing player development and coaching insights for 31 NHL teams

Read the full NHL on SAP case study here. 

Members 1st Federal Credit Union on Microsoft Azure

Members 1st Federal Credit Union went to Azure to develop a more unified and automated approach to customer insights and internal goals reporting for its branches. Primarily through Power BI, the credit union created a user-friendly dashboard that enables all of its branch leaders to understand their own numbers and how they relate to the numbers of other regions and the organization as a whole. This automated approach to analytics is also improving the customer experience:

“Instead of our associates spending time tracking their own goals, they now have more time to spend helping our members achieve their goals,” says Anita McAllister, assistant vice president of data and analytics, Members 1st Federal Credit Union

Industry: Banking

Use Cases: Reporting, data visualizations, dashboards, data quality assurance, unifying branch data and goals, digital transformation for desktop and mobile interfaces, marketing data

Outcomes:

• Automated, aggregated reporting of data from several branch locations through Power BI
• Automated reporting dashboards have eliminated data discrepancies from the previously manual process and ensured the use of validated data in reports
• A Power BI dashboard gives branch leaders insight into products, regions, and staff responsibilities
• Newly created branch reporting dashboard is saving the credit union an estimated 10,000+ hours a year
• Recent launch of a data-driven online banking platform and a redesigned mobile app for an improved customer experience 

Read the full Members 1st Federal Credit Union on Microsoft Azure case study here. 

Also read: Data Analytics Market Trends 2021