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CASE STUDY | FOOD PRODUCTION | DATA & ANALYTICS

A Recipe for Data

Making sense of the Ingredients with Decision Inc

Solution Overview

Industry

Food Production

Solution

Data Warehouse

Technology

Snowflake

Location

Australia

Client

Beak & Johnston is a food company that has been in business for over 35 years, delivering high-quality meal solutions using the best available technology.

Requirement

The company aimed to establish a data strategy and transform into a data-driven business that prioritizes future performance as much as past performance. To achieve this goal, they explored various options to upgrade their data analytics capability and advance their desired level of data maturity.

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Decision Inc. Australia Beefs up Data Analytics Capability for Beak & Johnston

About The Client

Beak & Johnston, a food company had run up more than 35 years of business in delivering value-added meal solutions.

It routinely invests in the best available technology to deliver a consistent quality product to specification. The company harnesses local and global insights to deliver consumer-led meal product innovation.

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Beak & Johnston recently determined its data analytics capabilities weren’t delivering what they needed to support and accelerate their growth.

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The Requirement

Beak & Johnston needed to develop a data strategy which leveraged their data insights to drive better outcomes focusing on both past and future performance. It began looking at options to revamp its data analytics capability and support its desired data maturity.

Beak & Johnston reached out to Decision Inc. Australia to assist on both fronts. The data and analytics consultancy looked at four key business areas – Supply Chain, Commercials, Operations, and Procurement – to see what solutions could be delivered to address the food company’s mandate for continued growth.

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By leveraging data insights for better outcomes you are able to see where you need to go, not just where you’ve been. Most organisations have the capability to analyse their data on past performance, but the world is moving beyond that to implementing forecasting models and leveraging indicators to best inform how to improve performance.

Aiden Heke, CEO, Decision Inc. Australia

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The company’s visibility of operational performance was detailed but historical based. Its existing data platform and reporting solution were not built to provide deep insight into how the company could lift performance into the future. Its data capabilities had grown organically to meet its needs at the time, but as the company started to ask more detailed questions of its business and how to support its growth, it became clear its analytics solution was falling short. 

“We were conscious of the need to work hand in hand with the client to investigate solution options which consolidated and standardised platforms while removing unnecessary legacy where possible,” said Heke. “We wanted to arm them with the tools to leap forward in analytics maturity.”

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The Solution

Decision Inc. was able to develop a strategy and deliver an implementation to modernise the organisation’s capabilities and put it firmly on the path to becoming a data-driven business. Decision Inc.’s Modern Data Platform architecture recommendation allows economic and scalable data aggregation, analysis and presentation which enabled the food firm’s employees to glean insights from data unlike ever before.

After detailed analysis looking for the best solution aligned to Beak & Johnston, Decision Inc. recommended a new data warehouse, Snowflake. A modern data warehouse would allow the company to automate and centralise its data in an economic and scalable manner.

Beak & Johnston mobilised a project called New Era utilising the new data platform to centralise key data sources and redesign all analytics across business functions.  The project exploited better ways to display existing information, add additional insights from other data sources to mature decision making from prior business performance to predicted performance excellence.

In addition, training and support was given to business users to ensure the new analytics was understood and utilised by the business.

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The Benefits

“Through Decision Inc. Australia’s work, we were able to build a business case for a renewed data strategy which included:

COST SAVINGS

SIGNIFICANT PROCESS AND TIME EFFICIENCIES

AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE ANALYTICS TO ASSIST IN SUPPORTING THE GROWTH OF THE BUSINESS

said Ray Hanly, Group CEO at Beak & Johnston

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They were able to provide clarity on the health of our current data strategy, and how to modernise it. As the implementation concludes, we continue to derive unique insights which will enable us to grow.

Ray Hanly, Group CEO & Managing Director, Beak & Johnston

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ABOUT DECISION INC. AUSTRALIA

Decision Inc. Australia is a leading independent data and analytics consultancy which delivers value from data faster.

As seen in The Australian Financial Review and The Weekend Australian, we serve the community and industry and believe great data and analytics expertise will underpin economic recovery and prosperity. We provide insights and accelerated business improvement capabilities to help our clients in their pursuit of progress. 

Decision Inc. Australia is a proud carbon neutral company. You can read about our mission to achieve carbon neutrality here and Great Place to Work certified.