Informatica Integrates Best Buy Data

eCRMGuide.com Staff

Updated · Aug 22, 2001

Consumer electronics retailer Best Buy Co., Inc. will gain customer service enhancement via Informatica Corporation’s PowerCenter data integration platform.

Best Buy currently maintains more than 1.6 terabytes of data in a single database and performs data integration operations on 250 source data feeds, representing an average of 330 million records a day. These data volume figures are expected to increase by 24 percent as Best Buy expects to open 60 new stores by the end of 2001. Consequently, Best Buy will need to enhance customer service and optimize business performance by accelerating the process of integrating fast-growing data volumes from numerous enterprise systems. Informatica PowerCenter will serve as the Best Buy’s data integration platform, consolidating information from key applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) and e-Commerce.

“Informatica will help us integrate information from an ever-growing number of data sources and avoid dependency on labor-intensive and error-prone programming,” said Clark Becker, senior vice president and CTO for Best Buy. “Not only will we streamline our responsiveness to user information needs, but the performance and scalability of the Informatica platform will help ensure that increased volumes of data will be integrated and available to analytics users very quickly.”

Informatica PowerCenter, which is optimized for parallel processing, will run on a 24-processor SUN E10000 server and support massive scalability to accommodate Best Buy’s projected growth. When Informatica PowerCenter is used in conjunction with Informatica PowerConnect products, Informatica PowerCenter provides integration among e-business and enterprise data sources such as: ERP, CRM, procurement, XML, messaging, clickstream data sources, relational sources, mainframe and legacy systems. Additionally, Informatica PowerCenter’s scalable and high performance features allow users to process increasing amounts of data in shorter times.

Founded in 1993, Palo Alto, Calif-based Information Corporation provides e-business analytic solutions to more than 1,300 global customers including 3Com, AMD, American Airlines, BMW, Borders Group, Chevron, Cisco, CNET, Deutsche Bank, eBay, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, MetLife, Motorola, Philips, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sprint and UBS.

Headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minn., Best Buy Co., Inc. is a specialty retailer of consumer electronics, personal computers, entertainment software and appliances. The company operates retail stores and commercial Web sites under the names: Best Buy, (BestBuy.com), Magnolia Hi-Fi, Media Play (MediaPlay.com), On Cue (OnCue.com), Sam Goody (SamGoody.com) and Suncoast (Suncoast.com). Best Buy reaches consumers through more than 1,800 retail stores nationwide, in Puerto Rico and in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

More Posts By eCRMGuide.com Staff