Customer Success Story Vertica Analytics Platform

Guess?

Fashion retailer seizes insight, efficiency across operations with Vertica’s predictive analytics.

Overview loads took up to five hours, ETL development Gaining popularity first in the 1980s for its was time-consuming, and complex queries stonewashed signature jeans, GUESS?, Inc. did not always finish. In addition, database has morphed into a fashion powerhouse with maintenance affected availability, data growth unique, on-trend clothing, shoes, and acces- was capped at 3 TBs, and the platform’s total sories from season to season. From its first cost of ownership (TCO) was excessive. The store in Beverly Hills have come 1,638 stores company coveted an innovative solution built in 92 countries. Consumers can also shop via purposely for querying and analytics. At a Glance a mobile app and the online site at guess.com. Solution Industry Challenge GUESS? replaced the EDW with an on-prem- Retail From GUESS?’s vantage point, data analyt- ise Vertica Analytics solution. “Vertica helps Location ics is imperative for continued retail success. us empower many calculations and analytics Los Angeles, California However, the Los Angeles, California-based that we couldn’t have done using Oracle,” says company was hampered by its Oracle en- Bruce Yen, Director-Business Intelligence (BI) Challenge at GUESS?. terprise data warehouse (EDW). Daily batch Adopt a new data analytics platform to deliver actionable data to all segments of the business for Results improved operations and business intelligence The change delivers 60 to 400 times better “Our Vertica platform is querying performance with daily batch loads Solution instrumental in many areas of taking 60 to 90 minutes. The platform ac- Implement Vertica solution integrated with user- our business—creating predictive commodates 36 TB of data, expands cost friendly mobile applications and data warehouses algorithms, serving up product effectively, reduces TCO, and simplifies time- Results consuming ETL work for company developers. recommendations, powering insight + Delivers 60-400 times better querying Eighty percent of the company’s workforce to our mobile apps, and generating performance with daily batch loads taking worldwide interacts with or relies on informa- 60-90 minutes versus up to 5 hours daily reports and ad hoc queries. tion that the Vertica solution generates daily. + Accommodates 36 TB of data (compared to 3 TBs It’s crucial for enabling us to be before) with cost-effective expansion capabilities more agile with data.” Building an EDW on Vertica enables remote, + Empowers reports, calculations, and analytics for timely data access for better business deci- 80% of the company’s workforce worldwide for better business decisions, operational efficiency BRUCE YEN sions and operational efficiency. First, the com- + Accelerates application speed-to-market by Director-Business Intelligence pany disseminated information from Vertica to 30-35%, enabling the rollout of eight mobile GUESS?, Inc. enterprise applications that improve decision- making, efficiency Customer Success Story Guess?

its iPad application, G-Mobile. This enhance- for developing GUESS?’s enterprise and cus- “It only takes one to two minutes to generate ment allows designers, buyers, planners, and tomer mobile apps. “We’re also gaining more reports in Vertica, instead of three hours previ- allocators to manage the business in near real efficiency by doing a lot of data manipulation ously. It’s huge to be able to move that time up, time. The latest sales, inventory, and logistical quickly within Vertica. The information we use to have that information about what happened information merges with merchandise images. to create predictive algorithms for our custom- yesterday and to better track sales,” Yen says. ers relies on us aggregating various sources CHARMING CUSTOMERS WITH of information. Those algorithms and models Mobile applications display information within ENGAGING CONTENT become more accurate based on the amount five seconds from source systems and 90% After the success of G-Mobile, the company of information and number of attributes.” of queries settle in less than 30 seconds. increased the number of mobile applications to Pertinent business information refreshes on eight, as they afford agility and an easy way for PUSHING THE ENVELOPE ON ANALYTICS a constant 24-hour basis for management users to interact with data. The Guess Jeans With Vertica, GUESS? conducts affinity and teams, providing substantiation at their fin- customer-facing app provides personalized market basket analyses to understand con- gertips for use in making decisions and seiz- content and product recommendations, which sumer attributes and purchasing behaviors ing opportunities. GUESS? executives obtain originate from a recommendations engine that better. Customer experience teams create hourly feeds of financials from all stores to get the BI team built on Vertica. The recommen- predictive algorithms to determine a number of a comprehensive view of company operations. dations engine allows customers to assemble buying scenarios, including the likelihood of re- outfits from various products based on their peat business from customers and their buying Designers and merchants count on receiv- unique style profiles. price points. Company analysts can run a model ing visual images of fabrics, trending styles, for each customer with the solution. This infor- and the top 30 most popular pieces in each “We want to enhance the customer journey mation is used to develop sales promotions, retail category. The information may prompt by sharing engaging content and use the target the right offers to individual customers, a striking new window display, promotion, or data generated across the company to create and intensify the Guess List loyalty program. merchandising arrangement that captivates more captivating offers and more revenue,” Yen shoppers. All of the information consolidates notes. “Our mobile app allows us to delight our “We don’t have to pay a third party for these in Vertica. customers by introducing new products that customer models,” Yen says, “so our investment they may not be familiar with.” in Vertica goes a long way. It can do more than The platform also powers the company’s near analytics and enterprise data warehousing.” real-time product inventory to help personnel He continues, “We could have bought a tool replenish items in stores and know how much that did this or worked with a third-party to Without fear that data size might affect pro- stock is available at any given time. Retail build a recommendations engine, but we have cessing and performance, the global retailer staffs receive the information easily and visu- Vertica and in-house expertise. We were able leverages its platform to serve crucial informa- ally. A query with details about size-level inven- to set the engine up in three months. That’s one tion to its stores and personnel globally. tory and all best sellers is now 60 to 80 times of the benefits of having Vertica. We couldn’t faster, requiring only 30 seconds compared have created the same thing with Oracle and “The amount of data we’re able to manage and to 30 to 40 minutes in the past. The previ- our previous technology stack.” the amount of insight these apps can bring, ous system generated merchandise reports plus do it in a quick way, also enable us to grow in 15 to 20 minutes. Even with remote data Speed-to-market is an important capability to our app portfolio,” Yen acknowledges. access, now merchandise reports complete in have in the competitive landscape of fashion five to 20 seconds and can be displayed via retailing. The company accelerates application FASTER DATA, QUICKER INSIGHT the G-Mobile app. deployment, in large part because ETL work With the previous database, the load process and data can be controlled within Vertica. of sales data took too long so that the latest “We’re making sure our inventory is being figures were not always available for morning moved from the stock room onto the floor as “We’ve probably saved 30% to 35% of re- staff meetings on the East Coast. Now store efficiently as possible. We’re doing that pow- source time in bringing our mobile apps on- managers have updated information about ered by Vertica,” Yen says. line,” notes Yen, whose team is responsible prior-day sales each morning.

2 “Our investment in Vertica goes a long way. It can do more than analytics and enterprise data warehousing. Vertica gives us a platform that we can build upon.”

BRUCE YEN Director-Business Intelligence GUESS?, Inc.

www.vertica.com

GAINING KEY ANALYTIC WINS “Vertica has allowed us to offload a lot of GUESS? staff conducting data science tasks querying that occurs on our operational sys- take advantage of the built-in SQL analytical tems,” Yen explains, “so that we’ve improved functions and visualizations in Vertica. These performance on those systems and the ability Vertica Headquarters sensible functions reduce data transforma- to deliver data-driven insight to our employees. 150 Cambridgepark Drive tion time compared to using a programm- We’re changing how quickly our teams can re- Cambridge, MA 02140 ing language. act to a business problem by having all of the data at their fingertips within Vertica.” “We don’t have a dedicated suite of data sci- entists, but as a company, we can still be agile While GUESS? has gained several key analytic with data science and accomplish the work be- wins, including trend analysis, inventory man- cause of the Vertica user-defined functions and agement, and personalization and customer advanced SQL analytical functions,” Yen notes. engagement, Vertica is the company’s foun- “Our developers create more complex queries dation for more enlightenment. with less code to investigate and solve prob- lems because of those analytical functions.” Yen notes, “In just three months, our employees started seeing the value of this platform. That’s Vertica ties into the company’s manufacturing a huge win for our BI team, because users and retail/customer relationship management don’t want to wait 12 months for a traditional (CRM) data warehouses. Data and tables from data warehouse project to come online. We’re these transactional systems replicate directly pleased with our reporting, standard analyti- into Vertica every five minutes. Whether ana- cal, and enterprise data warehouse capabili- lysts want to redefine large data sets, produce ties. But we’re hungry to do more predictive reports, investigate issues, or delve into the analytics. Vertica gives us a platform that we unknown, they can access the most current, can build upon.” accurate information. And the BI team doesn’t need to spend 70% of its time on time-sapping Learn More At ETL chores between systems, such as data vertica.com cleaning and transformation, because informa- tion resides in Vertica.

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