CCC Group takes a pioneering step as a truly data-driven enterprise

CCC Group, sells nearly 50 million pairs of shoes annually across 1,000 stores in 28 countries. The group continues its market expansion, taking a fresh look at data and its role in a modern enterprise. “Most companies look at data intelligence to understand what happened in the past,” says Krystian Hatała, Head of Data and Analytics Platform at CCC Group. “We use data proactively. When I have a business objective, I ask a data scientist teams to deliver the insights that will help reach it.”

Driving customer-centricity through data

The company’s transformation started with a data-driven CRM solution. “We created a powerful analytics environment connected with omnichannel marketing campaigns for the CRM domain,” explains Wojciech Górniak, Group Head of CRM, Head of Data & AI Hub. Built in collaboration with a partner, Elitmind, the solution provided a 360-degree view of the customer. The launch of the new tool was accelerated due to the pandemic, and helped CCC Group seize the chances. “We saw consumer behaviors changing completely,” says Górniak. “Mobile devices, 3D scanners, in-store self-service kiosks—there are many touchpoints where we now meet our customers. And this is a natural part of today’s customer journey, which is extremely complex.”

With so many data sources, the team needed a uniform data analytics system. “We used Azure Data Lake and Data Warehouse to collect, store, and segment data. We then integrated the data with an AI-driven marketing automation system from Synerise,” details Górniak. Data fed into the marketing system is used to produce targeted campaigns, nudging customers along the purchase journey. “The system helps us design better campaigns and tailored offers,” he adds.

Instilling an informed culture

Following the successful rollout of the CRM project, CCC Group decided to extend the data-first mindset to all teams. “We created an analytics powerhouse, with all systems under one roof, centralizing the work of IT, data, and data governance teams. We connect them all with visual analytics,” reveals Górniak. The modern data platform includes the Azure Databricks big data analytics service, and Azure Event Hubs, which receives and processes millions of events per second.

The solution unlocks efficiency improvements and market growth, alongside enabling customer-centricity. “We are now building a digital AI Lab, where we take all data and analyze them,” Górniak illustrates. “In terms of growth, we are harnessing data to understand whether to venture into a specific market or what products we should develop.”

Still, using data insights in an effective way requires a new mindset. “We are building a new strategy on data governance. We have created new roles and nurtured culture change to make this transformation happen,” Hatała explains.

“It’s all about ‘data literacy,’” adds Górniak. “We can build a fancy machine learning model but if we give it to someone who doesn’t know what to do with it, the investment turns into a loss.”

Marching towards a data-centric future

“We focus on customer excellence first, then on marketing and eCommerce, and finally operational optimization,” Górniak says. In addition, the company is growing its IT Engineering team to pursue the data-driven agenda internally. “Analytics is very high on our agenda because we believe in preparing for the future. We need to be proactive by having the right insights,” sums up Górniak.