case study
Chief data officer proved outsourced data strategy delivers timely results, avoiding lengthy, expensive in-house analytics implementation
OUR CLIENT
For more than 100 years, this American multinational company has been a global leader in the provisioning of scents, tastes, ingredients, and solutions for products in a wide range of industries, including food and beverage, animal nutrition, and home care. The company employs more than 3,000 people, has operations around the globe, and generates more than $10 billion in annual revenue.
THE CHALLENGE
Chief Data Officer needed six to eight months to analyze data so that CEO could make strategic decisions
With information scattered in different systems across the company, the Chief Data Officer (CDO) and his team of data scientists couldn’t easily access, compile, analyze, and generate data insights to drive company decisions. When the CEO asked the CDO questions to shape business strategies, the data team needed six to eight months to glean answers.
The lack of insights meant the company couldn’t proactively respond to supply chain challenges, foresee trends for new product development, or prevent customer attrition. The long turn-around timeframe wasn’t working. The CEO wanted data insights much faster.
THE TRANSFORMATION
Exploratory data analysis yielded critical insights in 10 weeks
The multinational company wanted to analyze data in four business areas—customer segmentation, product propensity, bundled product propensity, and customer churn. After the client granted UST access to the last three years of product, item, and sales data and its data dictionary, the UST analytics team kicked off a proof of value engagement to deliver meaningful insights in just 10 weeks.
Training data models explored the company's data by setting up a secure infrastructure to ingest the data from various internal company sources into the UST IQ platform. They generated insights about which products and geographies would generate revenue. From the output models, the CDO produced a business case demonstrating the value of the 10-week data analysis to gain funding for ongoing data analytics activities.
THE IMPACT
Proof of value engagement delivered insights 66% faster at a multinational company
The insights from the engagement answered many of the CEO’s most critical strategic questions. They demonstrated that the company could rely on a trusted partner to deliver data insights in just a few weeks.
The company compressed its data insight timeline from six to eight months to 10 weeks, a 66% improvement. The CDO proved that his outsourced data analytics strategy was much more efficient and cost-effective than building and maintaining an in-house data lake.
Now, the company has a repeatable, scalable, validated approach to analyzing data. Its leaders can make proactive, strategic decisions to manage supply chains, meet demand, and delight customers with innovative new products.
RESOURCES
Data Intelligence Platform | UST IQ
Retail Consulting Services and Transformation Solutions | UST