Evolving from DW to BI : HBCs Tale from the Trenches

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Evolving from DW to BI HBCs Tale from the
Trenches

• Zenobia Deboo

Hudsons Bay Company
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Table of Contents

• Company Overview
• Evolution from Data Warehouse (DW) to Business
  Intelligence (BI)
• Our Past Data Warehouse
• Our Present Business Intelligence Implementation
• Unanticipated Challenges of Change
• Approaches to Meeting and Overcoming our
  Obstacles
• Lessons Learned
• Closing Insights
• Questions and Answers

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Company Overview

• Hudsons Bay Company (Hbc)
• Canadas largest diversified general merchandise
  retailer
• Over 570 stores
• Nearly 60,000 associates located across all 11
  provinces in Canada
• Focused on exceptional customer service
• 5 Banners Online Store distinct Business
  within one HBC
• The Bay (Department Store)
• Zellers (Mass Merchant)
• Home Outfitters and Designer Depot (Specialty
  Home)
• Fields (Discount)
• E-Store (Online)

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Evolution from Data Warehouse (DW) to Business
Intelligence (BI)

• Our Past Data Warehouse
• 1 Data Mart per Banner
• Multiple Reporting Tools
• Limited User Access to reporting tools (No Access
  to our Stores)
• Heavy dependency on Centralized Reporting

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Evolution from Data Warehouse (DW) to Business
Intelligence (BI)

• Data Warehouse
• (EVOLUTION)
• Business Intelligence
• - Data Storage
• - Reporting

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Evolution from Data Warehouse (DW) to Business
Intelligence (BI)
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Evolution from Data Warehouse (DW) to Business
Intelligence (BI)

• Present Business Intelligence Implementation
• A Consolidated Retail Logical Data Model under
  one Data Warehouse
• 1 Reporting Tool
• 1 version of the Truth
• Decision Making driven by meaningful Reporting

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Evolution from Data Warehouse (DW) to Business
Intelligence (BI)
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Unanticipated Challenges of Change

• Attitudes

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Unanticipated Challenges of Change

• Attitudes
• Lack of Readiness to give up the Detail
• Resistance to Change
• Reluctance to give up the Old
• Fear of the New

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Overcoming the Challenge

• Attitudes
• Ease into an Idea
• Ongoing effort at HBC

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Lessons Learned

• Attitudes
• Constantly Evolving as an organization
• A Common goal
• Strong Management Commitment
• Management focus on the Common goal
• Recognize and Acknowledge efforts required to
  cope with Change

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Unanticipated Challenges of Change

• Understanding

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Unanticipated Challenges of Change

• Understanding
• Project team perspective
• Impacted business user perspective

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Overcoming the Challenge

• Understanding
• Clarity
• Gap Analysis

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Lessons Learned

• Understanding
• Timing of Gap Analysis
• Timing of true understanding

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Unanticipated Challenges of Change

• Project Staffing
• Organization Size

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Unanticipated Challenges of Change

• Project Staffing Organization Size
• Changes in Management
• Changes in Project Team
• Availability of Business Participants
• Roles and Responsibilities of each team member
• Degree of impact

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Overcoming the Challenge

• Project Staffing Organization Size
• Definition of Roles and Responsibilities
• Pilot Rollout Approach
• Commitment from all Levels of the organization

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Lessons Learned

• Project Staffing Organization Size
• Dedicate the right Resources to the task
• Assign Sufficient Staffing
• Create a separate sub project for Change
• Determine a Pilot Rollout Approach at the
  beginning of the project

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Unanticipated Challenges of Change

• Training

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Unanticipated Challenges of Change

• Training
• Who to Train
• Type of Training
• Timing of Training
• Training Resources Availability
• Depth of Training
• Attendance or lack of
• Executive Usage

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Overcoming the Challenge

• Training
• One on One Sessions
• Lunch and Learns
• Team Training
• Training materials

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Lessons Learned

• Training
• Training too early is as good as not training at
  all
• Training in Phases (basic to advanced) adds
  overall value and understanding
• You Can teach an old dog new tricks
• Repetition

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Unanticipated Challenges of Change

• Communication

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Unanticipated Challenges of Change

• Communication
• Communication is a job in itself
• Communication Questions
• How?
• How often?
• What?
• To whom?

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Overcoming the Challenge

• Communication
• Centralized Communication
• Communication attributes
• Clear
• Concise
• Informative

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Lessons Learned

• Communication
• Dedicate an individual to channel Communication
• You can never Communicate too much information

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Unanticipated Challenges of Change

• Trust

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Unanticipated Challenges of Change

• Trust
• Data
• People
• Effort Required and Fragility
• Honesty

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Overcoming the Challenge

• Trust
• Develop Business Processes
• Test, Test, Test ..

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Lessons Learned

• Trust
• Build the Trust and Sustain it
• Talk is cheap in a large organization so give
  them something to talk about

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Closing Insights

• .its the soft stuff thats the hard stuff!

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Closing Insights

• Assume the possibility of Unanticipated Change
• Set up Projects to Succeed by planning
  Unanticipated Change into the equation
• View Unanticipated Change with open eyes and fly
  rather than die
• Learn from others rather than re-inventing the
  wheel
• BI is a Program not a Project

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Closing Insights

• Celebrate the victory of positive change with
  your team

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• Questions and Answers