Application Case 3.5: AARP Transforms Its BI Infrastructure and Achieves a 347% ROI in Three Years
1.
What were the challenges AARP was facing?
AARP faces several challenges. One of them is that their SQL-based data warehouse was
struggling to handle increasing data volumes and analytical demands. Another challenge was that the system prioritized writing new daily data, neglecting reading operations by users. Additionally, users couldn't create custom queries without IT intervention. Finally, with over 36 terabytes of data in the data warehouse, taking backups was considered impossible, and backups were limited to only a few critical tables.
2.
What was the approach for a potential solution?
The organization has chosen to transition to a single data warehouse appliance as a solution instead of upgrading the existing environment. This data warehouse appliance is the IBM Netezza data warehouse appliance, which, unlike other data storage devices, does not require fine-tuning. AARP adopted the Scrum development model when creating the new environment. This model enables the rapid transformation of users' analytical needs into meaningful business reports displaying relevant data.
3.
What were the results obtained in the short term, and what were the future plans?
AARP's future plans included matching service and product offerings to membership bases and expectations, enhancing member profitability, loyalty, and acquisition, and managing relationships with third-party service providers to maintain the AARP brand image. While implementing these plans, they encountered some challenges and adopted the IBM Netezza data warehouse appliance and the Scrum development model as solutions. The solution adopted by AARP had some short-term results. Daily data uploads began to be completed around 8 am. Daily data uploads showed a 1400% improvement, and report generation time improved by 1700%. Additionally, it helped compress the data size from 36 terabytes to just 1.5 terabytes, allowing staff to easily back up the data in only 30 minutes. Moreover, the new platform enabled the organization to reposition IT support personnel from the BI group to other areas. These improvements led to a 9% return on investment for the organization in the first year.
