The ability to use third-party data to make smart business decisions can be the differentiator between good companies and great companies.
Integrating data such as demographics, weather, and local market data with internal customer data can supercharge your organization’s decision-making about marketing campaigns, supply chain management, and in-store operations. According to Deloitte, “Analyzing external data can help companies see risks and opportunities that they would miss with inputs limited to data generated from internal operations, customers, and first-tier suppliers. Analyzing external data can illuminate how factors such as shifting consumer behaviors, competitor initiatives, or geopolitical events can affect a business.”
But traditional methods of attaining third-party data (for example, ELT processes) can be difficult, costly, and time-consuming.
Snowflake Marketplace provides easy access to hundreds of live and ready-to-query data sets from third-party data providers and data service providers without the risk and hassle of periodic batch ingestion missing recent events and copying and moving stale data. Instead, companies can access live, governed, shared data sets and receive automatic updates to that data in real time, while owners of the data ensure that it remains secure.
With third-party demographic, purchase intent, and product and brand affinity data, retailers can promote the right products and services to their customers. They can also develop rich, contextual insights without compromising consumer privacy. With this holistic view of shoppers, retailers can anticipate consumer behavior to make better informed merchandising, pricing, marketing, and supply chain decisions.
Here’s how a few of our retail customers are using Snowflake to uncover insights into consumers.
Kraft Heinz
Since moving to the Snowflake Data Cloud, Kraft Heinz has been able to easily access external data sets that are hosted on Snowflake’s platform. For example, Kraft Heinz has been using COVID-19 data from Johns Hopkins University, allowing it to instantly see which areas of its business are most likely to be impacted. It uses this data to build predictive models that allow it to get products into the supply chain exactly where (and when) they’re needed, ensuring its partners and customers can keep supermarket shelves stocked. New data sets must typically go through extensive preparation and testing before they are ready to use, which impedes agility and experimentation. With Snowflake Marketplace, third-party data sets are already available on the platform and can be turned on in a few minutes. They are then available for use alongside Kraft Heinz’s own customer relationship management (CRM), inventory, and other data, making it easy for data teams to experiment and build new applications. That means the company can focus its resources on innovation instead of the mechanics of data sourcing, cleaning, and management.
Petco
Realizing the need for a modern data environment, Petco turned to Snowflake. Snowflake’s multi-cluster shared data architecture scales near-instantly to eliminate resource contention. Flexible capacity scaling provides a convenient solution to Petco’s cyclical reporting challenges. Modernizing Petco’s data environment with Snowflake had an immediate impact on operations. Business teams use data from Snowflake to understand and influence customer behavior across Petco’s stores, mobile app, and website. Data visualizations, enabled by Snowflake, provide 360-degree customer views that guide decision-making about personalized service offers, promotional campaigns, and other revenue-generating programs. The near-instant elasticity of Snowflake’s compute aligns with Petco’s cyclical reporting needs without incurring unused compute costs.
Foursquare
Retailers can access Snowflake partner Foursquare’s industry-leading data available via Snowflake Marketplace. Snowflake customers can quickly access, analyze, and use Foursquare data sets in their preferred, supported cloud environment. Users have easy access to—and use of—Foursquare’s industry-leading point-of-interest (POI) data set (Places) and real-world consumer behavior (Visits) data. Joint Foursquare and Snowflake customers no longer have to spend time and resources to set up ETL processes that only increase implementation costs and delay time to value.
Discover how your organization can understand consumer trends and behaviors with Snowflake:
- Learn more about the Snowflake Retail Data Cloud.
- Read our Retail Success Guide: 10 Ways Retail and CPG Drive Business Value with the Data Cloud.
- Explore data sets in Snowflake Marketplace.
- Watch our webinar featuring Kraft Heinz: Drive Profitability and Growth Through Superior Forecasting and Supply Chain Coordination.
- Read how Petco Modernizes Its Data Environment for Scalable Retail Analytics with Snowflake.
- Read our ebook: Best Practices for Leveraging Third-Party Data in Your Analytics.