Leading Internet Travel Website
Data Warehousing and Reporting Assessment

Business Challenge

Our client relied upon multiple third party vendors to track e-mail marketing campaigns.  The primary vendor had been utilized for subscriber communications for more than 3.5 years. Each vendor housed data that was considered to be an important source of consumer information which influenced many of marketing’s business decisions.  The client required the ability to retain both historical and current information within an internal data mart that provided a basis for financial and other e-mail marketing reports.

Standard reports were compiled on a weekly and monthly basis to communicate the heath of the subscriber base and determine the success in converting these subscribers into actual sales. The task of gathering this information utilized each external vendor’s web based reporting interface and query tools to request the bulk of required data.  Later, this information was copied into a spreadsheet to produce the final report which contained the desired calculations and executive level information.

The task of referencing these web based tools for key information was a manual process that did not leverage automated reporting.  To derive the information that The client required for internal reporting, users needed to run multiple ad-hoc reports to gain a single attribute.  This process was very tedious, time consuming and required manual intervention which had the potential to introduce miscalculations due to human error.  Because the client utilized multiple data sources for different e-mail projects, users were required to wait until data was available from all the sources in order to compile a comprehensive report.

In addition to the limited functionality provided by the approach of using multiple e-mail vendors, the client’s approach to data storage posed more risks to data that was already very difficult to replicate.  The highly manual efforts utilized to derive all reporting information limited the ability for the client to better communicate and leverage the valuable information obtained from these campaigns.

The Solution

Acumen Solutions was engaged by the client to complete an assessment phase that centered upon the creation of Business and Functional requirements. During this phase Acumen Solutions worked with key stakeholders to identify businesss and technical requirements and define project objectives. Acumen Solutions offered guidance with regard to a long-term, comprehensive, solution that would integrate most effectively within their existing infrastructure.

Technical/Business Expertise

The technology expertise used by the Acumen Solutions team included:

• Business Intelligence Strategy
• Business Objects Product Suites
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Microsoft Business Intelligence Tools including (Reporting and Analysis Services)

Return on Investment

Acumen Solutions proposed an environment that would centralize all external vendor data within a local data warehouse and provide detailed reporting/analysis for business users through the application of industry leading Business Intelligence (BI) tools.  This solution also included a complete migration strategy for the client which served to reduce their reliance on external vendors.

Leading Internet Travel Website: Data Warehousing and Reporting Assessment (PDF)