Automotive Supplier Uses Google Cloud for Data Intelligence
In this Case Study
- Upgrading a basic Google Cloud deployment
- Building a data warehousing solution with automated pieplines
- Reducing Google Cloud expense by 80% and increasing storage space by 10x
One of the largest independent automotive suppliers sought to optimize their data warehousing strategy to create a data-driven customer service engine. Corporate IT team leaders called on Burwood Group to uncover new value using the Google Cloud platform.
Opportunity-in-Waiting: Customizing a Standard Google Cloud Deployment
As a logistics-oriented business, this automotive supplier is known among their customers for personalized product recommendations and data-driven service. With this reputation and ethos, it makes sense that the IT team would invest in the Google Cloud platform as their public cloud provider. Google is known for their capabilities and potential for data modernization, automation, and analysis. However, the internal teams weren’t yet maximizing the Google platform for success:
The Google Cloud platform implementation was a very standard, “generic” set-up that was not configured to support their unique workflows.
In-house data scientists were spending precious analysis time on data clean-up and governance tasks.
Business unit requests for analytics insights required months of manual data and programming work. For example, the marketing team’s access to analytics insights required a lengthy set-up process.
Despite the lack of optimization and customization, the existing Google Cloud solution was very expensive.
The supplier team enlisted Burwood Group to build a new data warehousing solution that would:
Support more data and free up data analysts’ time
Reduce the monthly expense
Facilitate a smoother flow of data between different lines of the business
Transforming Google Cloud with Automation
“Effective data management isn’t just a nice-to-have in our business. It’s mission-critical. Real-time, standardized data and analytics enable us to market the right products to the right people at the right time. With Burwood Group’s collaborative expertise, our entire team is positioned for competitive advantage.
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Collaborating closely with internal IT, DevOps, and analytics leaders, Burwood investigated the challenges and brainstormed possible approaches that would support organizational process flow and culture. With these insights in mind, Burwood consultants achieved stakeholder buy-in for a new plan. The new high-level architecture would incorporate:
An automated pipeline of formatted, standardized data,
Built-in checks and balances to protect data security and exclude invalid data without the need for manual data integration, and
The supplier’s previous investments in DevOps toolsets.
With these approved guardrails in mind, Burwood created a code base, design patterns, and DevOps processes that could be adapted and scaled for future needs.
Improved Business Intelligence with Automated Data
Data Intelligence
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Today, the automotive supplier’s data scientists, analysts and data owners throughout the organization have fast and easy access to the data they need, whether they’re inputting new data or mining for fresh insights from the database. They have reduced their Google Cloud expense by 80%, and teams are able to store roughly 10 times more data than they could previously.
With their new foundation of real-time, standardized data, their internal data scientists are using artificial intelligence and machine learning to uncover customer insights, improve customer service and pursue new market opportunities.
