With greater than 4,300 shops throughout France, Belgium, Portugal, and Poland, Groupement Mousquetaires is one in all France’s main retail teams, with a various portfolio that features grocery chains, house enchancment shops, and automotive service facilities.
La Stime, our Data Programs Division, is important in supporting each step of the client journey—from retailer operations and logistics to provider efficiency. Inside La Stime, the DataLab group drives our information technique and implementation, turning data into actionable insights that inform key enterprise choices.
As early adopters of data-driven decision-making, we launched our centralized DataHub in 2019. This initiative aimed to unify buyer information right into a 360° view, allow cross-brand analysis and improvement, and energy smarter operations and choices.
On the core of DataHub is Databricks. Its complete Information Intelligence Platform has strengthened information governance throughout our evolving ecosystem. With Unity Catalog, our groups can now unlock the complete worth of our information, driving income and innovation.
The challenges of decentralized information
Earlier than adopting Unity Catalog, we confronted important challenges managing information at scale. With practically 700 Databricks workspaces, our advanced surroundings required guide administration of consumer entry and permissions in every workspace—a time-consuming course of that was unsustainable in the long term.
This decentralized method made it tough to supply self-service entry to trusted “gold information” with out sacrificing oversight or slowing groups down. Discovering the correct information, making use of constant safety insurance policies, and enabling cross-team collaboration grew to become more and more tough. With out a unified governance framework, information utilization diversified extensively and was arduous to manage.
Complying with information safety requirements, like Règlement Général sur la Safety (RGPD)—the French equal of the GDPR—was notably difficult throughout improvement and testing, the place the shortage of centralized controls launched compliance dangers.
Though we had already adopted Unity Catalog for brand spanking new information merchandise, we rapidly realized that migrating our current workloads was important. It felt like an enormous endeavor, however it promised to streamline entry, enhance governance and place us for sustainable progress.
Rebuilding information governance with a trusted partnership
In retail, timing is every part. Give it some thought — focused promotions, stock updates, social media advertising and marketing tendencies and buyer sentiment. The whole lot can change within the blink of a watch. That’s why retailers want dependable, accessible information. Finally, this necessity drove us to rethink how we handle and govern information throughout Groupement Mousquetaires’ household of manufacturers.
We began by taking inventory of the place we have been—a deep dive into our current structure. With a whole lot of Databricks workspaces in use throughout manufacturers, international locations and groups, our information panorama grew to become more and more advanced and tough to supervise and handle. From our retailer operators and provide chain analysts to our e-commerce group, everybody wanted entry to information. But, getting that entry securely and persistently was a significant roadblock.
Standardizing the inspiration and constructing the plan
So, we went again to the fundamentals. As soon as we mapped our present structure and used that to outline a set of requirements, together with how information could be named for catalogs, schemas and tables, we have been capable of construction and share it. Subsequent, we partnered carefully with Databricks’ Skilled Companies group to design a technical technique for migrating our information and bringing our most crucial information merchandise into Unity Catalog.
From there, our IT group led an inside initiative to replace all ingestion and processing pipelines, making certain information was revealed instantly into Unity Catalog—making a single, dependable entry level for entry.
Our enterprise squads—comprising information engineers, DevOps, and product homeowners—took possession of migrating the info merchandise they managed. With clear steering and help from IT, every squad’s migration grew to become a trackable milestone in a bigger rollout marketing campaign.
Pilots, playbooks and progress
To make sure success, we ran three pilot migrations whereas conserving in shut collaboration with our Databricks Supply Options Architect. Their deep experience helped us set important benchmarks and finest practices for our groups. We additionally linked with different giant organizations endeavor comparable migrations, exchanging insights that helped us refine our method.
From these early efforts, we constructed a sensible, no-fluff migration playbook. It grew to become the spine of our planning periods, serving to squads prioritize their efforts with the broader roadmap in thoughts. Along with the Databricks group—together with Discipline Engineering consultants—we developed a strategic rollout plan that centered on technical readiness and prioritized lively improvement pipelines the place integration could be most impactful.
To cut back threat, we averted coupling migrations with important enterprise initiatives. Most significantly, we deprioritized any information merchandise prone to be phased out inside six months.
Because of this collaborative, methodical method, we streamlined migrations and scaled extra effectively than we might have on our personal. With a powerful basis, clear enterprise worth from early wins, and continued alignment throughout groups, we’re now on monitor to achieve 100% Unity Catalog adoption throughout all Databricks workloads by 2025.
The Outcomes of higher information unity and governance
Adopting Unity Catalog has essentially remodeled information governance at Groupement Mousquetaires. We have created a centralized, safe, and collaborative information surroundings that empowers smarter, sooner decision-making throughout the enterprise. However for us, Unity Catalog is greater than only a governance software—it’s a strategic enabler. It unlocks seamless information sharing, enhances operational agility, and lays the groundwork for future information monetization.
Wanting forward, we see this as a important differentiator within the European retail panorama—one that can assist us evolve every model right into a extra data-driven, responsive, and aggressive drive.
