Customer case study
Smiffy's and
Zap Data Hub
Seamless Data Unification:
A fanciful costume company partners with Zap Data Hub to unify its data and increase its sales potential
About Smiffy's
For nearly eight decades, Smiffy’s has built a legacy in the apparel industry. Their original claim to fame was their high-quality, high-fashion wigs and hats. Today, they have grown into a global enterprise that outfits their consumers in the fanciful costumes of their dreams.
Now operating across several continents, including Australia, America, and Europe, their sales span several channels, including their own site, Amazon, and Independence. Significant volumes of sales generated extensive data, creating a need for better data management.
Rob and Phillip, the resident data custodians at Smiffy’s, relied on Power BI for all their reporting needs. They embarked on a journey to use the company’s vast data reservoirs to their best advantage.
Industry
Apparel, Retail
Website
Solution
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Challenges faced
Prior to partnering with Zap, Smiffy’s faced significant data-related hurdles due to disparate systems and manual data consolidation, leading to reporting inconsistencies. Over time, it became abundantly clear that there was a severe lack of integration within the disparate data systems, leading to an inability to extract meaningful insights into holistic business analysis.
Phil explained, “Loads of people just had to keep exporting the raw data from Dynamics NAV, and there were different figures going around because different people sliced and diced the data in different ways.”
“People could never actually understand what they were looking at, as one person might include one thing, and another would exclude it. So, there was always a difference in figures, and it was quite hard and manual to report on things.”
Echoing Phil’s sentiments, Rob stated, “Another challenge pre-Zap was looking at data from different systems in a collective way. As Phil alluded, there was a lot of exporting data and not having a tool to umbrella the systems together so they could communicate. This made it difficult to look at data from one side of the business alongside data from another side and extract meaningful insights.”
The exhaustive manual manipulation of inconsistent, raw data made the reporting process inefficient and prone to frequent human error.
Solution outcomes
Smiffy’s data transformation began with their partnership with Zap, who guided them in their transition from Excel to Power BI reporting through the standardization of datasets and reports.
Zap Data Hub created a cohesive data ecosystem for Smiffy’s, empowering them to unify their disparate data sources and eliminate their reliance on cumbersome manual data exports.
Having that one system where we can pull all the data through and push them into Power BI reports is really handy for the business, as they’re all effectively looking at the same thing - the same data with the same filters.
Rob Davidson,
Former Head of Reporting
Rob expressed his approval of Zap’s methods, saying, “Having that one system where we can pull all the data through and push them into Power BI reports is really handy for the business, as they’re all effectively looking at the same thing - the same data with the same filters.”
Paired with Zap Data Hub’s impressive flexibility, Smiffy’s is destined for ongoing innovations in its field thanks to the benefits of unified data sources.
Zap’s unified data hub facilitated Smiffy’s transition from relational to tabular data models, which ensures seamless integration with Power BI. Users can now create ad-hoc reports without the help of IT. This level of standardized data management became a catalyst for unprecedented success for Smiffy’s.
Smiffy’s success with Zap’s support inspires others to utilize their unified data hub. “As I transition to a new role, I’m considering bringing Zap Data Hub to my new company. I think the tool itself is one of the best middleware tools I’ve used in my time, and the support package that comes with it is superb.” - Rob Davidson, Former Head of Reporting.
Partnership highlights
Consolidation of data from multiple servers: Data from a variety of venues is now collated into a single centralised location. Today, Trader House can more easily view the big picture when it comes to their data, accessing everything they need to know whenever they need it.
Simplified exports and data manipulation within Excel: Provided with the functionality to export raw data into Excel, Trader House can now easily manipulate it to support an array of reporting requirements. This added flexibility has helped them further analyze the information and generate tailored reports for stakeholders.
Simplified exports and data manipulation within Excel: Provided with the functionality to export raw data into Excel, Trader House can now easily manipulate it to support an array of reporting requirements. This added flexibility has helped them further analyze the information and generate tailored reports for stakeholders.
Partnership highlights
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Standardized Data Reporting: Ensured consistent and reliable data across the organization.
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Data Unification: Integrated multiple systems, reducing the need for manual exports and improving data insights.
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Enhanced Power BI Integration: Enabled seamless data management and report generation, empowering users to create reports independently.