Marks & Spencer picks Cloudera to boost data analytics capabilities

M&S wanted a strategic partner that could help it to build an analytics hub and complement its in-house capabilities

UK retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) has selected Apache Hadoop platform Cloudera to help boost its data analytics capabilities - allowing it to analyse data from multiple sources, in a bid to gain a better understanding of consumer behaviour.

Jagpal Jheeta, head of BI and customer insight at M&S, explained that the company evaluated potential partners that could help it to build an analytics hub and complement its in-house capabilities to make data-driven decisions across the business.

"Smart and efficient data usage is a key focus at M&S, as it ultimately fuels better customer insight, engagement, and loyalty. We needed a scalable, robust and future-proof strategic partner. Cloudera is aiding us in leveraging analytics to better serve the business now and in the future," he said.

M&S assembled a cross-departmental team with members from marketing, finance, e-commerce and IT to take part in the selection process for a big data provider.

Jason Foster, business solutions manager for big data, analytics and marketing at M&S, said it was essential for M&S to work with a strategic technology partner that would help to build M&S's big data platform alongside its in-house team.

"We used Cloudera University and Cloudera's Professional Services to accelerate our progress in creating a great enterprise analytics capability," he said.

M&S has been focusing on becoming a "data-driven company" in recent times. It selected Tibco's analytics software Spotfire back in 2013 over rivals Tableau and QlikTech, and it is already using the software across almost every department.

Pete Williams, analytics and innovation manager at M&S, told Computing back in November 2014 that his ambition was to make sure Spotfire is being used in every department that's using data.

"I want to put data at the heart of every business decision. I don't want people coming back a week later with actions on what was talked about; I want them to drill down and make a decision there and then," he said.