Eldorado Casino simplifies data analysis, saves on printing costs
The Eldorado Hotel and Casino in Reno, Nevada is deluged with customer data that it needs to quickly analyze in order to make important business decisions. Not long ago, the company purchased software that allowed them to analyze that data instantly and save significantly on printing and distribution costs.
Paper monster
Eldorado’s IT department used to print a monthly, 600-page “green-bar” report full of customer information that was analyzed and used to make key decisions. Printing and distributing such large reports was a cost Eldorado didn’t want to continue to pay.
IT Resource Drain
Problems with programming these reports added an additional burden. Writing a program to generate a new green-bar report typically required more expertise than most end-users had. Consequently, Eldorado’s IT department had to be involved whenever a new reporting requirement arose, thereby straining IT resources and leaving users dependent on IT to properly interpret their needs.
Analysis paralysis
Not only were these reports unwieldy and difficult to program, but they made data analysis a challenge. Because the reports were static, it was impossible to use them to dynamically analyze data and make decisions quickly.
Real-time data integration solution
The company eliminated its reporting problems by using RPG2SQL Integrator to transfer the critical customer data that resided on their System i into Excel spreadsheets where users could more easily use and analyze it.
The software transfers data to Excel pivot tables in real time. Details are stored in the back-end, while the front-end displays just summaries. Users can then easily drill down to get details whenever they discover an interesting pattern in the summary.
Cost savings and quicker analysis
The software allowed Eldorado to eliminate the costs associated with printing and distributing monthly 600-page reports. More importantly, though, it lets the people who best understand the business, and who are charged with deriving value from the data Eldorado amasses, to be much more creative in their use of the available information.
“Getting the analysis ability into the hands of the user, rather than them having to rely on IT, has been an incredible thing for us,” said Eldorado IT Manager Ken Berg. “It’s opened up people’s minds to the point where they start thinking about things and saying ‘what if’ on their own. We found users using data that we never would have given them before to make decisions that they never could have made before.”
Download Full Case Study 