Customer Story
DKMS
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Apotek 1’s Data-Driven Transformation
Achieving 100X Faster Insights with Exasol
Case Study
Accelerating Insights, Enhancing Operational Efficiency
Apotek 1’s partnership with Exasol has been transformative, helping the company overcome limitations and become a more data-driven enterprise. By providing a high-performance, scalable, and reliable acceleration layer, Exasol Database has empowered Apotek 1’s business users with improved data accessibility.
The benefits have spread throughout the business, enabling Apotek 1 to innovate and use data to enhance operational processes such as:
Analyzing promotional campaigns, inventory and space management in more detail than ever.
Closely monitoring and addressing possible stockouts and excess inventory.
Achieving 10-100x faster query performance enabling complex analysis and data-driven decision-making.
Apotek 1’s Data-Driven Vision
In the competitive world of retail pharmacy chains, staying ahead takes more than just stocking shelves. It demands deep insights, agile decision-making, and a proactive approach that anticipates customer needs rather than just reacting to them. For Apotek 1, Norway‘s leading pharmacy chain with over 450 locations, this initiated a data-driven transformation driven in part by Exasol Database, a high-performance analytics accelerator that has changed how Apotek 1 uses data.
Location
Norway
Employees
3,500+
Industry
Pharma
Product
Analytics Acceleration
Slow Queries. Frustrated Users
To begin their transformation, Apotek 1 decided to migrate from an on-premises Oracle database to the Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse in the cloud because the promise of improved performance, scalability, and cost savings made a logical first step. The company also implemented IBM Cognos Analytics as its BI and reporting layer and the migration seemed successful at first, with notable performance gains in the short term.
However, the company soon encountered issues with performance consistency. Query response times varied significantly, ranging from seconds to hours, making it difficult for users to rely on the system for timely insights. Dashboards and reports often timed out or returned errors, severely limiting the scope and depth of analysis. Users were forced to aggregate data and restrict the historical range they could analyze, which had an impact on Apotek 1’s ability to uncover timely insights.
One notable example was the inability to process data from the 6-8 weeks prior to each campaign, which hindered Apotek 1’s capacity to identify patterns, anticipate issues, and resolve stock availability problems proactively. At the same time, their move towards a self-service analytics model, where users could create their own reports and dashboards, became brittle and prone to breaking. This frustrated users, limiting data interactivity, analysis and adoption.
The analytics team spent hours tuning and optimizing the system, with little success. As frustrations grew, it became clear that the technology was impeding Apotek 1’s analytics goals, rather than enabling them.
Exasol Database:
The End of Unpredictable Query Times
Determined to find a solution, Lars Sommervold, Head of Analytics at Apotek 1, discovered Exasol Database. His team conducted a proof of concept (POC) using Apotek 1’s data and SQL queries on Exasol’s private managed cloud.
The results were impressive. Queries that once took minutes or hours now completed in mere seconds with Exasol Database. Moreover, Exasol’s performance was consistent and reliable, a stark contrast to the unpredictable behavior of the previous system. Convinced by the successful POC, Apotek 1 made the decision to migrate Exasol Database, hosting the solution on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Unlocking Business Value
Apotek 1’s switch to the Exasol Database marked a turning point in their analytics journey, delivering immediate and tangible benefits.
“Now it works. Now I can drill down. Now I can use the slicer. Now I can use this dashboard without waiting and waiting and waiting, and sometimes never getting an answer.”
– Apotek 1 Business User
Democratizing Insights with Self-Service Analytics
With the ability to leverage self-service analytics using Exasol Database, Apotek 1 optimized their marketing campaigns and achieved returns, including:
- Optimized Promotional Effectiveness: With Exasol Database, staff have access to more detailed analysis on how promotions impact sales, inventory, space management and the calculation of actual uplifts of a campaign. Using these insights Apotek 1 can fine tune stock management approaches and promotional campaigns to improve uplift.
- Accelerated Insights: Query performance improved by 10 to 100 times, enabling users to ask complex questions and combine data in ways that were previously unattainable.
- Enhanced Data Interactivity: With more responsive dashboards and interactive data, users now have the flexibility to run experiments and explore new insights.
Enabling Deeper Insights
Exasol has supported Apotek 1 in improving decision-making processes by enabling granular, detailed queries and fostering a data-driven culture. This has led to several benefits:
- Supply Chain Issues: Granular analysis enables Apotek 1 to monitor, detect, and address supply chain problems more effectively.
- Stockout Reduction: By leveraging data-driven insights, Apotek 1 can investigate the causes of stockouts and take appropriate action to resolve them.
- Enhanced Operational Visibility: Exasol has enabled Apotek 1’s 450+ pharmacies with access to deeper insights, helping to minimize excess inventory and drive better decision-making.
- Fostering a Data-Driven Culture: By enabling employees to access and analyze data, Apotek 1 has cultivated a culture of curiosity and innovation, setting the stage for continuous improvement and growth.
Eliminating Data Pipeline Bottlenecks
While Exasol’s fast querying layer transformed user interaction with data, it also revealed inefficiencies in Apotek 1’s ETL processes. The Operational Data Store (ODS) became a bottleneck, with slow ETL delaying data availability. Despite Exasol’s query performance, users often waited for data as loading times exceeded the batch window or in the worst case, never completed.
To address the bottleneck and fully leverage Exasol’s capabilities, Apotek 1 decided to migrate the ODS layer into Exasol using Virtual Schemas, a built-in virtualization feature. This yielded significant benefits, including:
- Significantly Reducing Processing Times: By integrating the ODS layer with Exasol, Apotek 1 achieved a remarkable 10 to 100-fold improvement in data pipeline performance compared to their previous solution.
- Enhancing Data Availability: With optimized data pipelines, Apotek 1 ensured that users could access the most up-to-date information without waiting for loading processes or experiencing incomplete data transfers.
Boosting DBA Productivity
Apotek 1’s adoption of Exasol not only delivered reliable query performance but increased the productivity and efficiency of Lars’s team, including:
- Streamlined Migration and Optimization: Exasol’s intelligent algorithms ensure optimal performance, reducing the need for manual database tuning and optimization. The similarity between Exasol’s and Oracle’s syntax and functionality further facilitates a smooth transition to Exasol Database, minimizing disruption to business operations and saving valuable time and resources.
- Efficient Resource Allocation: Exasol’s automated performance optimization minimizes the cost of data administration and enables Apotek 1’s team to focus on delivering actionable insights and driving business value, rather than spending time on technical maintenance. This shift allows Apotek 1 to allocate resources more efficiently.
The Road Ahead
With Exasol as the foundation of its analytics infrastructure, Apotek 1 is well-positioned to continue its data-driven transformation. The company plans to further expand its use of advanced analytics, particularly in areas such as operational efficiency, promotion optimization (such as uplift, markdown, cannibalization and push-forward) and inventory optimization. The business will also continue to empower its users with self-service capabilities, fostering a culture of data-driven decision-making at every level of the organisation.
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