Modernizing infrastructure using Fivetran and dbt: La-Z-Boy's approach to complex retail and manufacturing data problems from Coalesce 2023

"Our main goal was to provide these pipelines so that our business teams can get the data as soon as they want it, wherever they want it."

- Selwyn Samuel, Director of Data Analytics & Enterprise Architecture at La-Z-Boy

Alex Hauer, Lead Product Marketing Manager at Fivetran, and Selwyn Samuel, Director of Data Analytics & Enterprise Architecture at La-Z-Boy, discuss La-Z-Boy's journey of modernizing their infrastructure with Fivetran.

The importance of data in creating a seamless customer journey

Selwyn explains how data was integral to La-Z-Boy's vision. This vision revolved around improving customer experience by providing comfort throughout their journey.

"During 'pre-buy,' our marketing team works with primarily second-party and third-party data to understand the buying patterns of the consumer," Selwyn explains. "During 'buy,' we aim to make the experience comfortable for our consumers."

He further elaborates that the goal was to democratize data, providing relevant information to sales associates and other staff members to enable them to better serve the customer. "Our data team's mission was providing the right data to the right people at the right time," he states.

Overcoming the challenges of data modernization

According to Selwyn, the process of modernizing La-Z-Boy's data infrastructure was not without its challenges. These included dealing with organizational silos, ensuring metadata consistency, and upgrading from legacy technology.

"Organizational silos exist, and we have to recognize that. As a data team, we have the unique opportunity to build bridges across the silos using data," he says. He also emphasizes the importance of collaboration in overcoming these challenges: "Collaboration is the key. Our mindset needs to be more collaborative, bringing people together."

The benefits of modern data infrastructure for business and consumers

Selwyn shares some of the benefits that La-Z-Boy saw from modernizing its data infrastructure. Not only had they been able to save money and improve data accuracy, but they were also able to make a real business impact and provide better services to their customers.

"Our supply chain team was able to save upwards of $5 million in the reduction of inventory levels," he shares. "We were able to improve our shipping data accuracy by 20%."

Looking ahead, Selwyn explains that their long-term goal was to democratize analytics and incorporate AI and machine learning models.

Selwyn and Alex's key insights

• Data management is a cross-functional team sport, requiring collaboration across different teams and departments
• The modernization of data infrastructure involves moving from ETL to ELT
• Data governance is crucial and should be considered early in the process.
• The right tools can greatly ease the process of data modernization
• A clear vision and roadmap are important for successful data modernization
• Modern data infrastructure can lead to significant business benefits, including cost savings and improved data accuracy