Unieuro S.p.A. is an italian company, a leader in omnichannel sales of consumer electronics and appliances with over 500 shops, both directly operated and affiliated, strategically distributed across Italy. It serves over 2 million active customers who use various channels to purchase the best products and specialized services.
Innovation is at the heart of Unieuro. The company has embarked on a bold digital transformation journey, called Beyond Omni-Journey, which in the coming years will strengthen its competitive advantage by enhancing product trading through the pervasive use of AI and data in processes, and by expanding its offering of services and omnichannel experiences dedicated to customers.
In response to new market’s scenarios, the challenge that Unieuro has chosen to undertake to pursue its strategic plans involves adopting Google Cloud technologies and implementing a cloud data strategy, developed in collaboration with Huware and Google Cloud, to transform and innovate current processes with a data-driven approach.
Data usability and accessibility are the foundational goals of this strategy, and at the same time, the most critical aspects of the company’s current architecture.
To enhance and expand the use of data in internal processes and customer solutions, Unieuro has adopted an innovative approach to data governance by choosing to manage data as products. This definition reflects the need to reevaluate organizational, architectural, and business aspects in a long and complex transformation and innovation journey.
To carry out this crucial project, Unieuro has chosen Google Cloud as its primary technology partner for cloud-managed services, both for infrastructure and, most importantly, for Artificial Intelligence and data management solutions. In this context, Unieuro has entered into a strategic collaboration with Huware whose extensive expertise in Google products and the retail industry, has quickly enabled the definition and creation of a Data Platform based on Data Products.
The main elements of Unieuro’s new data architecture, defined with Huware, are:
In the process of the platform development, the model designed with Huware has brought immediate definition of various innovative data products, which enabled Unieuro to deliver immediate value to internal stakeholders.
The adoption of a data management model based on data products, though complex in its implementation, has effectively allowed Unieuro to accelerate its transformation and innovation journey across various processes, while also facilitating communication between stakeholders.
The definition of data products has addressed Unieuro’s need to design and innovate for specific business objectives, increase the usability of data products for business functions, even independently, while ensuring common data governance practices, and differentiate data solutions (ranging from reporting systems to recommendation and data monetization systems).
Additionally, this approach has enabled Unieuro to better leverage internal company expertise, providing a significant boost to the development of customized software, thanks to various services and ready-to-use solutions available directly on Google Cloud Platform, as well as the ability to reuse data. Furthermore, Huware supported Unieuro in designing an efficient cost management model, which immediately reduced a portion of the expenses related to maintaining software solutions and SaaS, optimized through custom implementations based on Google Cloud services.
