Transforming Business Operations for One New Zealand

Highlights

• Deployed a pioneering solution using dbt Cloud and Snowflake, setting standards for a new modern data platform and data engineering environment for One NZ.
• Implementation of a new template-driven dbt development framework based on dbt data engineering best practices.
• Provided customer-facing teams with an easily accessible consolidated view. Reducing data collection and research from approximately 20 minutes to less than 5 minutes.
• The sales teams at One NZ are able to use the dashboard to make timely, data-driven decisions and have relevant conversations with their customers, resulting in a high usage of the new dashboard, with 3.9k unique views within a single month.
• The iterative approach taken, with early and continuous user involvement, proved value early and fostered an agile environment.
• Received positive stakeholder feedback and initiated a roadmap for consistent funding.
• Expanded involvement in data initiatives and future-proofing business operations.

"This has been a game changer for our teams! We have everything we need to understand the services our customers have at a click of a button."
- Simone Cuthbert-Scott, General Manager Enterprise Service and Customer Delivery, One NZ

Introduction

One New Zealand (formerly Vodafone New Zealand) was part of the global Vodafone business network. It ceased to be a subsidiary of the UK based parent Vodafone Plc on 31 July 2019. One New Zealand (One NZ) is the largest wireless carrier in New Zealand, accounting for 38% of the country's mobile market share in 2021 with 2.4 million customers. In 2022, One NZ shifted an area of focus to a fresh business initiative aimed at elevating customer engagement and marketing for its business customers. Having partnered with Data Domain, initially through TTC (a sister company), since 2020 and with team members engaged in various critical data projects, Data Domain was entrusted with aiding One NZ in this new data venture. The initiative would provide the following business value:

• Cost reduction: Reducing reliance on external teams to access customer information and reporting, along with automation and consolidation of existing reports.
• Improving customer experience: Reducing lead time to call customers, enabling more proactive conversations and more meaningful interactions due to easier access to relevant data.
• Increasing revenue and reduce churn: Using business data to create cross-sell opportunities, targeted campaigns, and customised solutions.

Problem Statements

• There was an absence of a single view of business customers that would enable One NZ to drive strategic enterprise and SME customer sales and campaigning initiatives.
• The data and analytics for business customers were disparate and inconsistent.
• There was no single source of truth in the data to drive growth and retention initiatives, resulting in manual duplicated effort and errors in the analytics created.
• To build a view of customer accounts and engage with business customers, the sales teams were required to manually collate customer information by searching across multiple systems.
• Initial use cases and requirements were unclear, necessitating identification and baseline definition by Data Domain from various key stakeholders.
• Existing data sources, structures, and quality were complicated and poor. The solution required testing with a degree of test automation to resolve these core data issues and expedite speed to delivery. Trust with stakeholders had to be established for the product to be used for customer communication and campaigns.

The above necessitated the team to create data products that would consolidate service and account data for business customers, ensuring that the build quality met the standard required to support customer communication, campaigning, and in-application capabilities.

The Solution

One NZ implemented an agile squad for this initiative, consisting of a Product Owner and a team with multi-disciplinary technical capabilities. Data Domain was engaged to lead and deliver the discovery, design, analysis, build, and testing of the project in its entirety.

The team aimed to provide value quickly, iteratively, and collaboratively. Due to the complexity of the source data, the approach was to split the delivery into two phases: Proof of Concept and Productionisation. The solution had to accommodate core requirements and enable small incremental changes, modifications, or additions to be included in future phases.

The requirements were initiated with all stakeholders, including end users, to ensure the data product would be fit for purpose. The build was carried out with constant input from sales teams to identify changes early and incorporate them into the development phase.

Development was carried out collaboratively with other vendors and internal stakeholders, while delivery management, across multiple streams of work, ensured value in a timely manner. The development cycle made certain that end users could immediately use the data product, understand the scope of upcoming development cycles, and receive comprehensive training to achieve high satisfaction with the delivered product.

The Outcomes

• The Data Domain team deployed a pioneering solution for One NZ built using dbt Cloud and the Snowflake Data Cloud which is now the build standard for the Tribe.
• Coaching provided by the Data Domain team introduced new ways of working, a new template-driven dbt development framework, and baseline build. The automatic code generation framework increased developer productivity and ensured that consistency and best practices are being followed for data engineering using dbt across multiple squads within One NZ.
• The solution was considered so valuable that it initiated a roadmap for continuous funding of similar initiatives and the establishment of an ongoing dedicated squad for Business, with the potential to expand into Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence programs of work.
• The data products became valuable assets, providing customer-facing teams with an easily accessible, consolidated view of information that had previously been challenging to obtain or entirely absent.
• The Power BI dashboard saw frequent and high usage, with immensely positive feedback from stakeholders, making it a business-as-usual (BAU) tool. Customer-facing teams now have easy access to consolidated views with the top users consistently interacting with the dashboards hundreds of times per day.
• The successful implementation of the One NZ Business Customer Initiative not only improved operational efficiency and customer engagement but also set a benchmark for future data initiatives within the organisation. The project's results, including cost reduction, enhanced customer experiences, increased revenue, and reduced churn, underscored its importance as a strategic move towards data-driven growth and retention.

"By mastering the data we have on complex and often bespoke customer solutions, our single view of the customer capability has empowered our sales and customer success teams to much more efficiently and effectively serve our customers."
- David Redmore, General Manager Enterprise Product & Commercial, One NZ

Conclusion

The success of the solution now means that Data Domain is involved in new and ongoing data initiatives, including the construction of new data products on the new data platform and the decommissioning of legacy data products. The solution is also the source for other business-driven initiatives, which require a consolidated view of business customer, service, and account information, including customer loyalty programs and enterprise customer account management.

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