Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Ladbrokes Replaces Oracle Express with More Cost Effective BI Reporting Suite
Overview
Country or Region:United Kingdom
Industry:Retail and hospitality—Lodging, entertainment and gambling
Customer Profile
Ladbrokes is a world-leader in the global betting and gaming market, taking up to 10 million bets each week and £12 billion (U.S.$24.4 billion) in stakes each year.
Business Situation
The company reviewed the market for reporting and analytical tools with a view to replacing its end-of-life Oracle Express business intelligence suite with a more cost effective solution.
Solution
Ladbrokes implemented Microsoft® SQL Server® 2005 with ProClarity Analytics as the analytical environment, due to its extensive in-built business intelligence tools, flexibility, and low total cost of ownership.
Benefits
Low total cost of ownership.
Analyses 3 billion transactions a year.
Development and skilled resources.
More information for decision making. / “By choosing SQL Server 2005 over Oracle, we saved on the cost of a data integration solution, a reporting solution, and a notification solution, all of which would have cost extra with Oracle.”
James Hawthorn, IS Logistics Manager, Ladbrokes
Ladbrokes is the leading bookmaker in the United Kingdom (U.K.), Ireland, and Belgium, with over 2,600 owned and operated high street shops taking up to 10 million bets a week. The company wanted a more cost-effective, flexible, and scalable reporting environment to replace its end-of-life Oracle Express OLAP Server so as to exploit the full value of business intelligence (BI) within the company. Acting on advice from BI specialist IMGROUP, Ladbrokes migrated to Microsoft® SQL Server®2005 with ProClarity 6.1 as the analytical environment. The solution integrated easily with the existing systems at Ladbrokes, and is capable of handling its highly complex data requirements. Following its adoption throughout the Ladbrokes retail network for budget reporting, the company is now using SQL Server 2005 for five other BI initiatives including staff scheduling reporting, human resources, and finance.
Situation
Taking up to 10 million bets every week and around £12 billion (U.S.$24.4 billion) in stakes each year, Ladbrokes is a world leader in the global betting and gaming market. It is the leading bookmaker in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Belgium, with over 2,600 owned and operated betting shops. It employs 14,000 people, works hard to continuously deliver innovative value and services to its customers, and is a leader in remote betting over the telephone and Internet. As a growth business, it is continuing to invest in technology and its shop estates to generate more growth by offering the best possible experience to customers.
Despite the huge daily volume of cash transactions in the Ladbrokes retail network, analysis and reporting of actuals against budget performance in the branches was in need of improvement—it was relying heavily on a time-consuming and inefficient manual report delivery process.
James Hawthorn, IS Logistics Manager for Ladbrokes, says: “Our initial aim was to replace the previous system for distribution of actual against budget reports into each individual retail outlet by using a reporting tool via the intranet to ensure a near real-time service wherever possible.”
Ladbrokes needed to seek a more flexible and cost-effective alternative to its end-of-life Oracle Express OLAP Server at head office to provide a sophisticated set of reporting tools for its retail outlets. Depending on the initial project’s success, Ladbrokes was also keen to streamline compliance monitoring and security at its high street branches by making greater use of BI technologies.
“The approach was to ‘start small, think big,” says Hawthorn. “We were convinced that an advanced reporting and analytics solution would make us more proactive in creating innovative products for our customers and also better support our risk management strategy.”
Solution
Ladbrokes turned to IMGROUP, a U.K. specialist consultancy in BI, for advice on implementing an advanced reporting and analytics solution to replace its end-of-life Oracle Express OLAP Server. Hawthorn says: “IMGROUP was the ideal business partner for Ladbrokes because it had proven experience on building complex data warehouses, a strong understanding of our business sector, and the ability to deliver excellent results.”
After an extensive business assessment, IMGROUP recommended Microsoft SQL Server 2005 BI reporting suite, including Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services. The solution offered Ladbrokes an integrated suite and one-stop shop for BI. ProClarity 6.1, from wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary ProClarity, was the choice of analytical system offering users a robust and intuitive interface. It integrates tightly with the Microsoft environment and offers unique visualisation options.
Vaughan Powell, Practice Group Director, IMGROUP, says:”Ladbrokes did consider other options to SQL Server 2005 but they felt strongly that the Microsoft environment was strategically the best route to take. It was also a case of Ladbrokes slowly realising the added value BI can bring to a business. That is why the company moved from a limited central processing unit with a small database to a full commercial implementation of BI.”
Hawthorn adds: “One of its great technical strengths of the solution is that ProClarity analyses and drills down into detail without taking up loads of time by going through an iterative process. By using it, we can look at our business transactions holistically, spot emerging trends in near real time, and relate them to physical locations.Looking forward, we are keen to implement Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007, now that this initial phase has proven successful.”
By using its reporting and analytics features, Ladbrokes is now accurately tracking and interpreting patterns in its historical data. The result is valuable information that in future will help the company make more informed business decisions about developing new products, minimise risk, and improve security.
Hawthorn adds: “The initial project for distribution of actual against budget reporting into each betting shop was well received by the managers at each outlet and resulted in a decision by our managing director to sponsor the development of a full enterprise-wide retail BI solution.”
Benefits
The migration from its end-of-life OracleExpress to SQL Server 2005 BI reporting suite saved Ladbrokes the cost of buying separate data integration, reporting and notification solutions. All of these would have cost extra with Oracle Express, but were built in to the Microsoft product, which also offered higher performance, greater flexibility, and far less complexity for users through integration with existing Microsoft technologies.
Low Total Cost of Ownership for BI Reporting Suite
Because SQL Server 2005 has an extensive set of built in BI tools, it offers a much lower total cost of ownership than Oracle Express. “By choosing SQL Server over Oracle Express, we saved on the cost of a data integration solution, a reporting solution, and a notification solution, all of which would have cost extra with Oracle Express,” says Hawthorn. “We have also been able to use the same environment for staff scheduling reporting, human resources, and finance projects, as well as meeting the original aim of distributing actual versus budget information to our retail betting shops network.”
Analyses Three Billion Customer Transactions a Year
By deploying SQL Server 2005, Ladbrokes has a tool set capable of complex analysis of all of its retail outlet betting wagers, which total a mammoth three billion transactions a year. The scalability of SQL Server 2005— given the likely future growth of the expanding business—was a major driver in making the migration.
Previously, Ladbrokes relied on summaries of betting transactions by type, but with the new BI reporting suite it is much easier to track particular betting scenarios in near real time. “the company’s data requirements are extremely complex”, says Hawthorn, “and naturally there are security and compliance challenges, but SQL Server 2005 has the capability, flexibility, and scalability we require for supporting the level of analytics required in our business.”
Ease of Development and Available Skilled Resources
The stability of the data management and reporting solution, in addition to the familiar Windows® operating system interface and ease of use, has greatly enhanced the productivity of IT operations.
Ease of development and availability of skilled resources were major drivers for Ladbrokes in choosing SQL Server 2005. “Instead of continually troubleshooting failures and using manual processes, IT staff are now able to focus on applications and processes that further boost overall operations efficiency, such as reporting and documentation,” says Hawthorn. “We’re also expecting a substantial reduction in operating costs, although it is hard to quantify that benefit immediately.”
Integrated Information Improves Efficiency for Decision Makers
IMGROUP, a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner with competencies in BI, information worker productivity, and advanced infrastructures, ensured that Ladbrokes reaped the benefits of having an integrated single data warehouse. Powell says: “SQL Server 2005 is the best solution to quickly and easily analyse your business no matter what back end source you are using.”
With the extension of the Ladbrokes project to other areas of the company, users can access integrated human resources, finance, and transactional data, and take advantage of up-to-date information for decision making.
Hawthorn says: “Users can request high-level reports using ProClarity, and by using SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, and SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services, provide relevant information to support effective and timely decision making. With SQL Server 2005, we are now better informed and more proactive as a business through the provision of trend analysis and forecasting information.”
Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
For more information about the Microsoft server product portfolio, go to:
Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is comprehensive, integrated data management and analysis software that enables organizations to reliably manage mission-critical information and confidently run today’s increasingly complex business applications. By providing high availability, security enhancements, and embedded reporting and data analysis tools, SQL Server 2005 helps companies gain greater insight from their business information and achieve faster results for a competitive advantage. And, because it’s part of Windows Server System, SQL Server 2005 is designed to integrate seamlessly with your other server infrastructure investments.
For more information about SQL Server 2005, go to: