PAYBACK, Germany’s leading loyalty program, has successfully transformed its previously rigid reporting system into a self-service-oriented data culture. Until 2016, PAYBACK faced a challenge familiar to many large companies: even the smallest adjustment to a report required manual changes to the underlying data marts. This often led to delays. Analysts were fighting with a mountain of tickets, and users—frustrated by the wait—often resorted to email and Excel again, resulting in ever-larger data silos.
“We were receiving an increasing number of requests—both internally and externally—for ad hoc analyses and self-service reporting that would allow business units and partners to access the data directly, without having to go through our analytics teams,” explains Julian Stock, Team Lead for Analytics & Reporting at PAYBACK. “We therefore decided to look for a new tool that could be used for this type of analysis in addition to our daily and monthly reports.”
Overcoming Ticket Bottlenecks Through Detailed Real-Time Transparency
At PAYBACK, the days are now over when employees had to wait weeks for a report—one that answered only a single, narrowly defined question—due to an BI system. Since PAYBACK switched to ThoughtSpot’s self-service analytics, teams can drill down to the finest level of detail in near real time and answer their own questions, so to speak. For example, they can track the performance of a specific coupon at a single store on a specific day. The gap between a business question and a concrete answer has been effectively closed. Employees not only get reports generated faster, but also get exactly the right answer—right when they need it.
“The key to building a data-driven company is the self-service concept,” explains Andreas Weiß, Senior Reporting Engineer at PAYBACK. “Behind this lies a user-centered strategy and the realization that data literacy is an ongoing process.”
Through its partnership with ThoughtSpot, PAYBACK has acquired the Spotter tool. This provides the company with a new, scalable single source of truth and has enabled it to replace its legacy BI systems. With self-service at scale, data consumers become data owners, and PAYBACK’s analysts can focus on strategy rather than support.
Over 70 major retailers empowered—and significantly more insights
The data transformation at PAYBACK wasn’t limited to internal teams; it extends to the entire partner ecosystem. Major retail brands now monitor their KPIs independently in ThoughtSpot and manage their marketing campaigns on their own. This is largely done via self-service, without having to submit support tickets. As a result, data users become data owners, and analysts at PAYBACK gain time for strategic work instead of support.
As soon as users at PAYBACK were able to freely explore their data, they took full advantage of the opportunity. In addition to the 150 standard reports maintained by the team, over 300 user-generated Liveboards have been added. In practical terms, this means significantly more insights. As a result, the new system has not only achieved high adoption rates but also forms the foundation for a new data culture that is gradually spreading.
The Path Ahead Toward an AI-Powered Future
Payback aims to go even further down the path from ticket bottlenecks to self-service analytics and has already conducted a proof of concept for AI-powered analytics. One possible approach is to adopt an agent-based AI using ThoughtSpot’s Spotter. Spotter acts as a personal data analyst and enables users to query company data using natural language. As a virtual employee, the AI agent would lower the barriers for non-technical users and free up analysts’ time for work that truly makes a difference. In this way, PAYBACK is preparing for a world in which ever-increasing volumes of transaction data circulate at ever-faster speeds and must be analyzed in real time.
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