Bruce Yen, Director of Business Intelligence, Guess?

SuperNova Award Category

Data to Decisions

The Company 

Established in 1981, Guess?, Inc. began as a denim company and has since successfully grown into a global lifestyle brand. Today, Guess? designs, markets, distributes and licenses a lifestyle collection of contemporary apparel, denim, handbags, watches, footwear and other related consumer products. Guess? is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, and directly operates 511 retail stores in the United States and Canada and 328 retail stores in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The Problem

In the retail space, having current sales, inventory, and customer data is critical. But Guess?’s traditional database system failed to deliver the necessary query performance and report generation speeds. To be immediately responsive to customer and business needs, Guess sought to harness the power of big data in near real-time and thus compress the business decision cycle.

The Solution

Guess? leverages big data analytics and real-time mobile intelligence to better understand customer shopping behavior and differentiate itself from the competition. The solution includes a cutting-edge analytics iPad application, “G-Mobile,” designed for non-traditional Business Intelligence (BI) users. Via G-Mobile, Guess? extends analytics to the business front line—including designers, buyers, planners, sales executives, and allocators—so they can better manage the business.

The Results 

Previously, Guess? struggled to meet its users’ basic data needs. Today, the Guess? BI team not only exceeds the SLA with its user community, but it is pushing the analytics envelope, allowing insight-driven retail operations, merchandise planning, and marketing. For example, new insights have enabled the creation of an advanced recommendations engine. And the company has gained the ability to develop targeted sales promotions based on real-time affinity and market basket analysis.

The Technology

Guess? implemented the HP Vertica Analytics Platform across its North America operations to power all BI reporting and analytics.

Metrics

• Reduced the load window by 50 - 62.5 percent, from 3-4 hours on the legacy platform to 90 minutes at most.
• Accelerated speed-to-insight. On the legacy system, it might have taken 15 to 20 minutes to generate a merchandise report; it takes just five to 20 seconds on the iPad accessing data remotely.
• Improved merchandise allocation and distribution of inventory across retail locations due to complex queries, such as sales for all best-sellers, performed 60 to 80 times faster.

Disruptive Factor

Guess? brought the power of BI to new business users, which transformed the way people think and work at Guess?. Executives and store operations now can analyze, understand and react to sales trends with up-to-the-minute data from the stores on their iPads. The company’s drive to democratize data is game-changing for any industry, including retail.

Shining Moment

Before, generating the prior day’s sales reports took approximately three hours—too late to be useful at daily store staff meetings that occurred two hours before opening. Today, daily sales reports are generated early in the morning, providing right-time, actionable insight to store employees. This capability has transformed the way Guess? operates on a daily basis, with a tangible impact on store sales.

About Guess?

Established in 1981, GUESS began as a denim company and has since successfully grown into a global lifestyle brand. Today, GUESS designs, markets and distributes full collections of women's, men's and children's apparel as well as accessories. Throughout the years, the GUESS image has been portrayed in unforgettable, innovative campaigns that have made the brand a household name. GUESS is distributed throughout the world in fine department and specialty stores, its retail and factory stores, and on its online storewww.GUESS.com<http://storewww.GUESS.com>. GUESS has licensees and distributors in South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Middle East. In addition to shopping online, you can find more information on GUESS at www.GUESS.com<http://www.GUESS.com>.