Application Case 3.5 AARP Transforms Its BI Infrastructure and Achieves a 347% ROI in Three
Years
Questions for Discussion
What were the challenges AARP was facing?
AARP faced several challenges with its Business Intelligence infrastructure, including system
failures, slow performance, long report wait times, the inability of analysts to create ad hoc
queries without IT intervention, and difficulties in backing up a large data warehouse. These
challenges impacted their ability to provide timely and effective analytics.
What was the approach for a potential solution?
To address their data-related challenges, AARP considered upgrading their existing system or
adopting the IBM Netezza data warehouse appliance. They chose Netezza due to its performance
and flexibility and adopted an agile development approach called Scrum. This allowed them to
convert their scripts, improve data processing speed, and achieve significant ROI.
What were the results obtained in the short term, and what were the future plans?
Adopting the IBM Netezza data warehouse appliance led to significant improvements, including
a 1,400% increase in daily data load speed and a 1,700% reduction in report processing time. In
the future, AARP anticipated a 274% return on investment by the second year and a 347% ROI
by the third year.
