Volume XIII, Number 8, August 2013
GUESS?, I.: E
B C N L B I
Barbara H. Wixom, Principal Research Scienst
Anne Quaadgras, Research Scienst
MIT Center for Informaon Systems Research
Most companies are struggling to generate the much-publicized oppor-
tunities for business value from business intelligence (BI). One challenge is
that typical BI use is voluntary, so engaging potential and existing BI users
within an organization is not straightforward. IT leaders often find them-
selves in the role of salesperson, having to sell BI solutions to their user
communities to ensure that data investments bring about desired returns.
Previously, BI leaders created useful and easy-to-use business intelligence
products and services to land the BI sale. They focused on delivering
high-quality data through reports and powerful quantitative tools that users
could consume and
An infusion of fun into the user manipulate. Research at
MIT CISR suggests that
experiencecombined with a deep an infusion of fun into
understanding of decision-making the user experience
workflowsis becoming an added combined with a deep
understanding of deci-
requirement for BI value creation. sion-making work-
flowsis becoming an
added requirement for BI value
creation. Indeed, there may be something about
the app Angry Birds and how it draws in more than 263 million people1
every month to sling wingless birds at pigs that can inform the way we
should develop business intelligence products and services.
In this briefing, we describe how fashion designer and retailer GUESS?, Inc.
leveraged the latest IT trendship devices, data visualization, and Angry
Birdsthrough a number of development practices to make BI useful,
easy to use, and fun, encouraging decision makers to engage with BI in deeper
and broader ways.
GUESS?,Inc.
GUESS? designs contemporary fashion apparel, selling to wholesale and
retail customers around the world. Founded in 1981, GUESS? brands gen-
erated $2.7B in sales in 2012 from apparel and accessories for men, women,
and children.2
1 http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/how-many-people-play-angry-birds-
infographic/
2013 MIT Sloan CISR, Wixom and Quaadgras. CISR Research Briefings are published monthly to update MIT CISR patrons and
sponsors on current research projects.
Business success at GUESS? depends on decision
makers who are visual, creative types with little
time or inclination to embrace new technologies.
They range from merchandisers who closely track
sales trends, to designers who follow the popu-
larity of product styles, to executives who monitor
the current state of global operations.
GUESS? implemented a robust enterprise data
platform in 2006 when it invested in an integrated
data warehouse and subsequently rolled out Black-
Berry reporting (2008) and web-based dashboards
(2010). These tools delivered high-quality data.
They offered state-of-the-art BlackBerry- and web-
based user experiences and data manipulation ca-
pabilities. Nonetheless, by the close of 2010, most
decision makers at GUESS? still carried around
five-inch binders full of paper.
CIO Michael Relich knew that GUESS? IT need-
ed to do more to engage decision makers in
using BI tools. When he heard a conference
speaker describe how cool it was to use a tab-
let, he recognized an opportunity to get business
people sold on BI:
The tablet is the perfect device to consume data.
If we could take the merchandisers binder of
paper and convert it to a mobile application
with rich mediathat could be amazing.
Michael Relich, CIO,
GUESS?, Inc.
But Relich knew he needed more than a cool
device. GUESS? IT engaged BI users by com-
bining three ingredients in its BI design: use-
fulness, ease of use, and fun.
2 In 2011, GUESS? was a co-winner of a Best Prac-
tices Award for its GMobile BI application, fea-
tured in this briefing, from The Data Warehousing
Institute (TDWI) in the Emerging Technologies
and Methods category.
 CISR Research Briefing, Vol. XIII, No. 8 Page 2
DeeplyUnderstandtheBIUserCommunity:MakeBIUseful apps should present bite-sized chunks of in-
A BI team had worked for Relich at several different retailers for more
than fifteen years. Although the team had a deep understanding of the
retail industry and GUESS?s business model, they invested heavily in ex-
ploring their users decision-making needs and work habits while devel-
oping their BI app, called GMobile.
I stuck myself into a bunch of best-seller meetings with the merchants. I went
to the stores with them. I tried to understand what they had to go through on a
daily basis, to get a feel for their pain and for the questions that they ask.
Bruce Yen, Director of BI,
GUESS?, Inc.
This shadowing was important because the scenarios that we were designing
for were so different
Once people realized that the app than anything we had
made a real difference in what they done in the past. And
the approach revealed
wanted to do, they wanted to use it. some surprises. For ex-
Bruce Yen, Director of BI, ample, Yen learned that
a lot of interaction be-
GUESS?, Inc. tween a merchant and
the app occurred before
a store visit, instead of during a visit
as predicted. These and other insights were fed
into the development process iteratively, enabling the app to support high-
ly emergent workflows.
We wanted the app to have more of an investigative workflow. I can tap and
get down to more insight and more detail. And you can go back to your
beginning point easily. Think of it as one of those old Choose Your Own
Adventure books that we read as kids. Flip to page 73. You open the door on
the left. Page 14, you open the door on the right. Bruce Yen
Developing decision-making workflows instead of rolling out reports and
dashboards was a shift in thinking from past BI efforts. Ultimately, the
content delivered via GMobile equated to more than twelve pre-existing
web-based dashboards.
DeeplyUnderstandtheDeviceandtheProcess: the users could visually see whats happening.
MakeBIEasytoUse
As the BI team worked with users, they explored the new device and its
ecosystem. Yen explains:
We had never worked with [a tablet] before. We bought devices for everyone on
the team, and I told them download as many apps as you can. We had
impromptu meetings to discuss what we liked to get into the mindset of what
makes for a good app. Bruce Yen
Everything was fair game. The team assessed highly regarded media apps and
exciting games like Angry Birds and a vegetable chopping game. Through
this, they learned how much information to serve up at a time and when.
The team noted how apps organized information so that it was easy for
people to digest. They learned, for example, that more is actually less:
August 2013
formation that lead to different types of
data on demand.
Yen hired a skilled app developer who was able
to capture the BI teams design while emulating
cool apps and leveraging device-specific nuances
that users would expect, such as swiping and fin-
ger gestures. The GUESS? Director of Mexico
and Latin America Support explains:
People arent afraid to push buttons or try
something because they know the tablet is not
going to break. They are much more likely to
explore. Then, the more you use it, the more
you realize new ways to use it.
Director of Mexico and
Latin America Support,
GUESS?, Inc.
The BI team invested in a leading-edge platform
to ensure GMobile interaction would be fast. The
app accessed terabytes of data representing thou-
sands of SKUs from 400500 locations over time,
so GUESS? invested in a database appliance to
process the data for rapid delivery in the app.
DeliveraHipExperience
withVisualAppeal:MakeBIFun
GMobile presents data using charts, graphs, and
maps. The team initially underestimated the pow-
er of even simple visual approaches.
It was a breakthrough in realizing that visual
analytics does not necessarily mean a geospatial
tool or a lot of time creating charts and graphs.
There was a missing piece of analytics that we
could bring just by doing something as simple as
adding a picture instead of listing styles so that
Bruce Yen
A graphic artist made the app highly intuitive, ad-
ding contemporary themes to spice it up. The
BI team recognized that the device itself also
played a role in the initial adoption of GMobile.
The users were open to it because it was on a
fun, hip device.
At first, Im not really sure if users wanted
[GMobile] simply to get a tablet, but at the end
of the day, does it really matter? Once people
realized that the app made a real difference in
what they wanted to do, they wanted to use it.
Bruce Yen
August 2013
Savvy device users augmented GMobiles intend-
ed capabilities via other apps on the device. For
example, they combined PDF readers and note-
pad apps with GMobile so that all information
used to make decisions was integrated on the de-
vice. They also began using the tablets camera to
take photos of store layouts and display strategies.
Use,Usefulness,andFun=Deep leading to outcomes such as proposed changes in store allocation processes.
Engagement=BusinessValueCrea on
GMobile is so familiar to people that its second
nature. My quant in the home office can talk to
a creative person in design who can talk with a
nineteen-year-old in the storesand communi-
cate on the same level. Senior Vice President
of Planning and Allocation,
GUESS?, Inc.
Figure 1: Interface Example from GMobile, GUESS?, Inc.s Business Intelligence Applicaon
Page 3 CISR Research Briefing, Vol. XIII, No. 8
The result of GMobile is a highly engaged user base whose use of the app
translates transactional, informational, and strategic benefits to GUESS?. In a
transactional sense, GMobile eliminated paper reporting, allowed two to three
FTE-days reduction every week in data massaging and manipulation, and
decreased best-seller meetings from bi-monthly to monthly because people
were already on the same page regarding product sales. GMobile im-
proved information flow within and in regards to the company, resulting in
better and faster decisions. Data-driven insights increasingly informed strategy,
GUESS began its BI journey with textbook capabilitieshigh-quality
data and state-of-the-art BI tools that were useful and easy to use for its
users. But the company found that this was not enough to maximize value
from its BI investments. It was missing a key design element: fun. Once
GUESS embraced a new look for BI, its users became deeply engaged
and substituted tablets for their five-inch binders.
Source:OriginalimagefromGUESS?,Inc.