While LMI had clear notions of how data can deliver a competitive edge, it was hampered by its technology systems. “We had an immature BI environment and platform,” says Casey Toia, Head of Analytics at Les Mills International, “but we did have a great team of analysts who know how to run reports, pull them into Excel and use the data.”

This prompted the engagement of Qrious. “We wanted help identifying the best platform and then bringing in BI and data specialists to establish and develop it. With the right platform and systems, we could empower our analysts with the capability to readily access data and deliver the insights we’re looking for.”

Qrious performed a thorough series of workshops and meetings, conducting interviews with 66 people across LMI’s global operations. This was filtered down into a set of feedback and a roadmap with a list of projects and operational actions for LMI that included LMOD.

- Casey Toia, Head of Analytics, Les Mills International

Based on LMI’s existing systems, Qrious recommended Snowflake running on AWS. “At LMI, AWS was already being utilised across the business, and we have S3 buckets feeding Snowflake where possible,” says Toia.

S3 is AWS’s object storage, while ‘buckets’ refer to storage locations for data extracted from operational systems.

“This turned out ideally, as with Snowpipe (Snowflake’s continuous data ingestion service) it is less costly to put data into S3 and then Snowflake – and costs like that can really interfere with your ROI numbers.”

Among the recognised advantages of Snowflake over other platforms is that it is easier for analysts to work with, flexible, requires little or no support and can run locally and globally.

Other elements include WhereScape RED for data warehouse automation, and Stitch for data acquisition from sources including MailChimp and Salesforce.