Park Cakes is one of the UK’s leading food manufacturers, supplying high-profile, leading global retailers. Operating from nine bakeries across two manufacturing sites and a distribution centre in Greater Manchester, Park Cakes delivers high-quality, high-volume cakes and desserts, including the millions of much-loved and famous ‘Colin the Caterpillar’ cake for M&S Food.
The Challenge
A Recipe for Success: Overcoming Legacy System Limitations
The Park Cakes’ commercial finance function faced a significant challenge when their previous reporting solution was going out of service. They needed to move at pace and sought a cost-comparable alternative with equal or better features, scalable options, enhanced data security, and stronger data governance for improved control and compliance.
The new cloud data platform solution and front-end visualisation tool would support the commercial function in the preparation and maintenance of financial statements, enabling conversion from commercial forecasts into meaningful business plans, driving data-enabled decision-making in key business areas for Park Cakes, such as new product development (NPD). It was also a requirement that during the transition process to the alternative solution, Park Cakes were able to continue their business-as-usual operations smoothly.
The Solution
Snap Analytics stepped in to address Park Cakes’ challenge by setting up a modern data warehouse and reporting solution. The project involved several key stages:
- Define, Design, Plan: Snap Analytics collaborated with Park Cakes to understand their requirements and design a future-proof Cloud Data Platform that would allow for the inclusion of new data sources and the automation of manual processes. This included setting up AWS infrastructure, connecting core SAP systems, and redesigning source connections to use native Matillion connectors. In addition, a review of front-end analytics and visualisation tools was conducted.
- Migrate: The migration phase involved moving Matillion jobs and setting up a new ETL data warehouse aligned with Snap ETL framework, in AWS Redshift. Snap Analytics also implemented Pyramid Analytics as the enterprise AI-driven analytics platform.
- Build & Test: Snap Analytics built the necessary infrastructure, tweaking some objects in the newly architected landscape. Terraform was used in the new landscape to run the infrastructure-as-code (IaC), providing assurances in all eventualities. At the same time, best practices around backups and disaster recovery on AWS were built in. On the front-end formulas for custom time intelligence capabilities were created within the Pyramid Analytics Platform and Snap Analytics conducted thorough testing to ensure the solution met Park Cakes’ requirements.
- Train & Run: Snap Analytics provided training to the Park Cakes’ team, enabling them to use the new Pyramid analytics solution effectively, offering ongoing support to ensure continuity and smooth operational enablement.
The Data Stack
- Data Sources: SAP, APIs, databases, and flat files
- Integration Tool: Matillion ETL
- Storage: AWS Redshift
- Business Reporting and Analytics Tools: Pyramid Analytics
The Results
The Icing on the Cake: Transforming Data into Insights
The implementation of the new reporting solution by Snap Analytics led to several key achievements:
- Enhanced Data Integration: Park Cakes now has a single source of truth across their business, enabling better decision-making.
- Improved Data Visualisation: The use of Pyramid Analytics allowed for more dynamic, intuitive and visually appealing reports, making it easier to identify trends and key insights.
- Time Efficiency: The Cloud Data Platform + Pyramid Analytics has enabled faster load speeds and better visualisation tools, allowing users to quickly generate and interpret AI assisted reports.
- Robust Data Governance: Pyramid Analytics allowed for secure semantic modeling and role-based access for improved control over their data accessibility.
- Scalability: The new solution provided Park Cakes with the ability to scale their reporting capabilities as needed.
- Cost Efficiency: Amongst the many business use cases of their new solution Park Cakes have improved their internal capacity to analyse the impact of commodity price changes on overall product costs, which had historically been a struggle. Park Cakes are now able to identify with clarity the impact of inflation on products and product ranges for specific retail customers, allowing them to react swiftly to how costs can be recovered or reimbursed from and to their retail customers.
- Empowered Users: Snap Analytics supported Park Cakes in adoption through the provision of comprehensive user training and onboarding to the new platform.
“The implementation and the transition from our legacy system was seamless. The project management and ongoing support we received from Snap Analytics really went above and beyond.”
Arfan Aslam, Finance Business Partner, Park Cakes
“The visualisations our team now have access to have changed the way we work significantly, making it easier to identify key trends and insights that benefit our wider business.”
Burhan Kadri, Commercial Accountant, Park Cakes
