Texas Rangers Baseball
Texas Rangers' Operations Team Leverages Teknion's SDA Framework To Scale Data & Analytics Program
Client Bio
Industry: Major League Baseball
Location: Arlington, TX
What They Do: The Texas Rangers are an American professional baseball team. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division.
Website: www.mlb.com/rangers
Solution Focus: Data Strategy
"Duct Tape Doesn't Scale. Teknion's SDA Framework enabled us to put together a comprehensive data strategy that ensured we could scale to handle all of the new data we would be receiving from our new state of the art stadium."
Machelle Noel - Manager - Analytics Systems -Texas Rangers Business Operations
Texas Rangers' Unique Data Challenge
The business operations team at the Texas Rangers have been doing data and analytics for the last five years. However, with a new state of the art stadium coming, and all of the new data they would have available to them, they knew their current systems and manual processes were not equipped to handle the load.
In addition, employees were using disparate, versions of data, coming from different sources, many not updated consistently causing inaccurate analysis and a mistrust in the data.
The Rangers's organization knew they needed to develop a state of the art data and analytics system to support their new stadium operations, but did not have the expertise in house, nor the bandwidth to undertake this initiative on their own. They turned to Teknion to assist them in developing a data strategy to deliver on their vision of:
- Foundation for growth
- Scalable systems
- Real time access to data
- A single source of truth
- Automation of manual processes
- An executable roadmap, budget and action plan
- Being ready for the MLB Season Opener
Teknion's Approach
To assist the Rangers with developing a plan to scale and implement a data and analytics solution, Teknion introduced our Strategic Data Assessment (SDA) framework.
The SDA framework is a Teknion developed approach to thoroughly understanding a client's data challenges and systematically evaluating areas of the organization that will lead to a more impactful transformation for the organization.
Areas we cover in the SDA Framework include:
- People & Processes
- Data Models & Structures
- Data Architecture & Platforms
- Visual Analytics & Reporting
- Advanced Analytics
Upon completion of the evaluation, we provided a comprehensive presentation and detailed report, with recommendations to the Rangers Business Operations team as part of the deliverables to the Strategic Data Assessment.
SDA Recommendations
As part of the SDA process, Teknion provided the Texas Rangers with a set of actionable recommendations to consider as they undertook implementation of their data strategy.
Modern Data Architecture/Structure:
With the major changes in the type and volume of data the Rangers were going to start producing with the new stadium, Teknion recommended a new modern data architecture and data structure to ensure the data could be captured, processed and stored in an efficient and effective manner to ensure scalability as the volume of data grows.
Creation of Data Lakes:
In order to ensure stakeholders were using accurate and timely data in their analysis, Teknion recommended the development of Data Lake(s) as a way to better manage the reliability, accuracy and timeliness of the data as well as ensuring streamlined access to those that needed the data.
Automation of Manual Processes Leveraging Alteryx:
The Rangers had a variety of manual processes that were preventing them from process and analyzing the data more quickly as well as hampering scaling capabilities. By understanding which processes could be be automated, Teknion recommended the deployment of Alteryx to streamline and automate the majority of their daily data prep and processing processes.
Comprehensive Roadmap:
Understanding the Rangers' objectives and constraints on their organization, Teknion worked with the team to co-develop a comprehensive road map, project plan and budget. This comprehensive plan enabled the Rangers' team to get buy-in for the initiatives articulate success criteria with "Quick Wins" and to outline a multi-year investment schedule that was feasible for the organization.
Client's Wow Outcome
The SDA Framework helped the Texas Rangers to develop a comprehensive plan and get the entire organization on the same page as to the vision and how the Business Operations team would be able to deliver on the vision.
By leveraging the SDA Framework the Rangers:
- Brought multiple stakeholders to the table in a very collaborative, productive way
- Envisioned a comprehensive roadmap
- Developed a realistic, executable plan to build confidence and bolster support.
- Identified "Quick Wins" at key milestones to ensure continued commitment
- Proved out the ability to support new data volume and sources through a POC
- Identified points of automation to enable scaling
- Demonstrated a clear ROI and increased Time To Value
"We needed guidance to be able to think about the future. Bringing in Teknion to help us do that was a no brainer!
Machelle Noel-Texas Rangers Business Operations
Watch our full interview with Machelle Noel from the Texas Rangers
I would like to learn how Teknion can help me solve my organization's unique data challenge.