During Australia’s pandemic lockdowns, Rip curl, an Iconic Australian surfwear brand decides to migrate its data gathering and collection operations to the cloud. Rip Curl Pro is the Australian surfwear maker’s preeminent surfing competition was postponed on short notice.
Data is consolidated from disparate points along its operational chain which includes Rip curl stores throughout the world. The transition of data assets from on-premise platforms to Azure by working together with Microsoft. Using Azure Data Factory, a lot of its legacy data had already been extracted and transmitted to the cloud to handle the migration.
As per Stuart Connell, Rip Curl’s Lead Business Intelligence (BI) Architect, old 32-bit systems don’t work within the Data Factory platform and Microsoft always has a solution. A virtual machine sits inside the architecture to connect some infrastructure and do the ETL [extract, transform, load] using some open-source Python scripts.
To fulfill the business intelligence and data analysis needs, Rip Curl decided to go with Microsoft by incorporating Microsoft’s Power BI to proffer AI-powered data visualization and personalized reporting tools. When visual toolsets add an entirely new element to understand various vast quantities of data being collected by an international retail chain.
Along with setting the growth trajectory based on intelligent data insights, the company also focuses on integrating data points from its points of sale (POS) and retail store counters. Specific customer behavior and purchasing patterns can be accessed with an in-depth range of data insights.
Power BI can even visualize data insights using images from Rip Curl’s inventory when linked with Rip Curl’s e-commerce system and image database. Store staff can see images of what is being delivered in each box and carton using the delivery report generated by Power BI. Development of broader insights to optimize decision making in business can be done with the help of pilot projects exploring external data sets.
Inventory automation and decision making for Rip Curl can be supported by artificial intelligence and machine learning in the future. For the key decision-makers to drive greater efficiencies depend on the pace at which information reaches them and Rip curl focuses on accelerating it. Microsoft’s business intelligence and cloud computing capacities were able to enhance the new target of Rip curl.
BI transforms the way companies operate by providing a singular view of key customer drivers. Across a consistent real-time platform, product performance can be understood from in-store to head office.
