Sisense > Case Studies > Manage Analytics Challenges with Sisense for Custom Furnishings and E-commerce

Manage Analytics Challenges with Sisense for Custom Furnishings and E-commerce

Customer Company Size

SME

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

Sisense

Tech Stack

Big Data Analytics
Data Modeling
Dashboard Creation

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Productivity Improvements
Customer Satisfaction
Digital Expertise

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Big Data Analytics
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Applicable Industries

E-Commerce
Retail

Applicable Functions

Business Operation
Sales & Marketing

Services

System Integration
Software Design & Engineering Services

About The Customer

Since 2004, Montgomery, Alabama-based Online Commerce Group has specialized in upscale outdoor and indoor living space products for both residential and commercial markets. With a diversified portfolio of over 50 retail websites including CushionSource.com, Online Commerce Group sells custom-made furnishings and accents and has ranked for three years straight in Inc. magazine’s fastest-growing privately-held companies in the United States.

The Challenge

As the company grew, Online Commerce Group’s data become so large that, without a new generation Big Data Analytics solution, management couldn’t receive quality reports. The fast growth of the company meant that Data Manager Paul Auen was unable to run reports with large enough data sets to provide any real value to the business end. “Originally, we could do reports manually, but as the data sets got larger, the reports took longer and impacted the transactional database,” Auen recalled. “We were constrained between keeping the servers running or making it available for reports.” Online Commerce Group chose a popular business analytics tool, but it was too complex; Auen’s group was unable to run reports at the speed and frequency needed for the business. Quickly, the team abandoned and turned to Sisense. The company needed a solution that could: 1. Quickly analyze large data sets coming from multiple sources. 2. Provide drag-and-drop modeling and dashboard creation for business users. 3. Automatically generate reports and publish them to the company intranet. 4. Require a minimal capital investment and learning curve for use.

The Solution

Paul Auen’s team began evaluating traditional business intelligence platforms, but when he heard about Sisense as an up-and-comer in the Big Data Analytics space, he was intrigued and decided to test out the solution; he threw all his data at it, and soon was impressed. “We could easily import our data structure’s model without scripting, quickly build dashboards, and share analytics in minutes. We could do all that with the free trial before we had to put any money into it,” he said. “We could prove Sisense worked before we had to make an investment in it.” Auen appreciated the out-of-the box aspect of the Sisense solution – in one package, the solution provided a high-performance analytical database, along with reporting capabilities any business user could use to work with large data sets ad-hoc. Once he installed the software, he configured it to make sure it was connected to the many data sets Online Commerce Group uses. Deployment was so efficient that Auen was able to run reports on day 1, without training. This was far from the experience he had had with traditional vendors or even the more modern in-memory or visualization vendors. Auen can now accommodate his need to work with data in a constant state of change. No matter how data changes in structure, Auen can swap out dimensions and create reports by customer, website, or salesperson without having to completely rewrite the report. Data size is not an issue either – Auen can breeze through half-a-terabyte of data in minutes on standard hardware. This is important, as his need for real-time analytics has grown: reports to management and teams are automatically published to the company intranet – without bogging down the server.

Operational Impact

The greatest benefit of using Sisense is the availability of the data to managers. Managers now have the same data they used to have, but more of it and in a variety of forms so they can see it in different ways. Managers who prefer to pull data into Excel have that option as well. The flexibility that Sisense affords Online Commerce Group has made it easier to review data and make informed decisions.
Sisense also clarified the need to clean up data. When you’re not looking directly at the data, you don’t realize how dirty it is or how corrupted it can become. Once we were looking at the integrated data, we could see how much work needed to be done to clean it up. Now, being able to see clearer data in a different way, we’re able to make better decisions on which products to offer and which customers add more value.
By being able to use Sisense to understand which products are selling well and on which websites, the company can better focus its marketing and sales efforts.

Quantitative Benefit