Aravo Solutions Case Studies Revolutionizing Data Accessibility and Analysis at The Hershey Company

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	Revolutionizing Data Accessibility and Analysis at The Hershey Company Aravo Solutions

Revolutionizing Data Accessibility and Analysis at The Hershey Company

Aravo Solutions

Technology Category	Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries	Consumer Goods Retail
Use Cases	Retail Store Automation Theft Detection
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
Challenge	The Hershey Company, a renowned name in the retail and consumer goods industry, was facing challenges in data management and analysis. Despite reaching a revenue milestone of $10 billion in 2022, the company was struggling with disconnected data sources, which prevented a single, consistent view of their data. This was a significant obstacle in making fast, data-driven decisions and staying ahead of market changes. The company aimed to build a Commercial Data Store (CDS) to serve as a single source of truth for commercial data across the entire organization. However, the complexity of Hershey’s data environment was further compounded by the fact that the company maintained separate data platforms to handle data for major retail customers. Read More
About Customer	The Hershey Company, founded in 1894, is a global leader in the retail and consumer goods industry, known for making chocolate accessible to everyone. The company has consistently innovated to delight consumers and has recently reached a revenue milestone of $10 billion in 2022. Despite this success, Hershey is always thinking about growth and aims to continue delivering what consumers want. To stay ahead of market changes and make faster decisions, Hershey recognized the need for a clear, consistent view of their data. This led to the decision to build a Commercial Data Store (CDS) to serve as a single source of truth for commercial data across the entire organization. Read More
Solution	To overcome these challenges, Hershey chose the Databricks Lakehouse Platform as the foundation of their CDS. They also engaged Advancing Analytics, based on recommendations from third-party vendors, to build the foundation of their CDS platform using Databricks technology. Advancing Analytics used their Hydr8 framework to significantly reduce the time needed to get the CDS up and running. The platform uses Databricks for ETL and data processing and serves data through Databricks SQL. All of Hershey’s commercial data reporting is now based on Databricks SQL and runs through Tableau and Power BI. This has empowered decision-makers to visualize and easily interact with data, rather than relying on canned spreadsheet reports. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Consumer Goods

Retail

Use Cases

Retail Store Automation

Theft Detection

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

Challenge

The Hershey Company, a renowned name in the retail and consumer goods industry, was facing challenges in data management and analysis. Despite reaching a revenue milestone of $10 billion in 2022, the company was struggling with disconnected data sources, which prevented a single, consistent view of their data. This was a significant obstacle in making fast, data-driven decisions and staying ahead of market changes. The company aimed to build a Commercial Data Store (CDS) to serve as a single source of truth for commercial data across the entire organization. However, the complexity of Hershey’s data environment was further compounded by the fact that the company maintained separate data platforms to handle data for major retail customers.

About Customer

The Hershey Company, founded in 1894, is a global leader in the retail and consumer goods industry, known for making chocolate accessible to everyone. The company has consistently innovated to delight consumers and has recently reached a revenue milestone of $10 billion in 2022. Despite this success, Hershey is always thinking about growth and aims to continue delivering what consumers want. To stay ahead of market changes and make faster decisions, Hershey recognized the need for a clear, consistent view of their data. This led to the decision to build a Commercial Data Store (CDS) to serve as a single source of truth for commercial data across the entire organization.

Solution

To overcome these challenges, Hershey chose the Databricks Lakehouse Platform as the foundation of their CDS. They also engaged Advancing Analytics, based on recommendations from third-party vendors, to build the foundation of their CDS platform using Databricks technology. Advancing Analytics used their Hydr8 framework to significantly reduce the time needed to get the CDS up and running. The platform uses Databricks for ETL and data processing and serves data through Databricks SQL. All of Hershey’s commercial data reporting is now based on Databricks SQL and runs through Tableau and Power BI. This has empowered decision-makers to visualize and easily interact with data, rather than relying on canned spreadsheet reports.

Impact #1	The implementation of the Databricks Lakehouse Platform has revolutionized Hershey's data culture. The senior leadership team now receives a single executive summary report every Monday morning in a Power BI dashboard, providing a detailed overview of business performance. The need to compile retailer partner data multiple times has been eliminated, with Hershey now retrieving accurate, up-to-date data from the retailer consistently around 8:30 AM Central Time every day. This has put timely data at the fingertips of everyone who needs it, enabling stakeholders to see more insights with less effort. The company is now exploring ways to establish similar views of data for their other major retailer partners. The transformation has made Hershey stronger and more innovative for the long run, with business partners becoming more data literate and the company now having all the capabilities they need in-house.

Impact #1

The implementation of the Databricks Lakehouse Platform has revolutionized Hershey's data culture. The senior leadership team now receives a single executive summary report every Monday morning in a Power BI dashboard, providing a detailed overview of business performance. The need to compile retailer partner data multiple times has been eliminated, with Hershey now retrieving accurate, up-to-date data from the retailer consistently around 8:30 AM Central Time every day. This has put timely data at the fingertips of everyone who needs it, enabling stakeholders to see more insights with less effort. The company is now exploring ways to establish similar views of data for their other major retailer partners. The transformation has made Hershey stronger and more innovative for the long run, with business partners becoming more data literate and the company now having all the capabilities they need in-house.

Benefit #1	Millions of dollars saved in cost avoidance and risk mitigation by enhancing data capabilities
Benefit #2	Thousands of hours saved from automating previously manual reports
Benefit #3	Over 2,000 business and IT users across multiple departments empowered

Benefit #1

Millions of dollars saved in cost avoidance and risk mitigation by enhancing data capabilities

Benefit #2

Thousands of hours saved from automating previously manual reports

Benefit #3

Over 2,000 business and IT users across multiple departments empowered

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Overview

Revolutionizing Data Accessibility and Analysis at The Hershey Company

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit