{"id":16345,"date":"2022-07-11T13:09:05","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T12:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/?p=16345"},"modified":"2022-09-01T08:25:14","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T07:25:14","slug":"sigma-healthcare-consolidates-data-storage-and-boosts-sharing-capability-with-snowflake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/2022\/07\/11\/sigma-healthcare-consolidates-data-storage-and-boosts-sharing-capability-with-snowflake\/","title":{"rendered":"Sigma Healthcare consolidates data storage and boosts sharing capability with Snowflake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sigma Healthcare has improved its data storage consolidation, access and internal data sharing practices with Snowflake.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snowflake, the Data Cloud company, has announced it has been chosen by Sigma Healthcare to underpin the company\u2019s strategy to improve its data storage consolidation, access and internal data sharing practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a leading Australian wholesaler and distributor of pharmaceutical products, Sigma is responsible for delivering vital medicines to consumers throughout Australia within 24 hours of orders being placed.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Dean Reynolds, Head of Data and Analytics, Sigma Healthcare<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Founded in 1912, the company has more than 1,000 employees and annual revenue for the year ended 31 January 2022 was AU$3.4 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had been looking for an alternative to our legacy, on-premise infrastructure that was ageing and no longer able to meet the increasing needs of the company,\u201d said Dean Reynolds, Head of Data and Analytics, Sigma Healthcare. \u201cWe were also restricted by the fact that we actually had three data warehouses in use which meant our data was very fragmented and siloed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A robust data<\/strong> platform scalable for future growth<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sigma IT team examined a range of replacement alternatives for its data infrastructure before selecting Snowflake. Key selection criteria included total cost of ownership, required management resources, privacy obligations and the ability to support data sharing and Sigma\u2019s future needs, for example, in the area of advanced analytics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOverall, we were looking to simplify our data infrastructure and ensure it could better meet the needs of the business,\u201d Reynolds said. \u201cWe quickly determined that Snowflake could readily meet these requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reynolds said the fact that Snowflake was designed from the outset for the cloud was an important factor, as was the ability to separate storage from compute resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said: \u201cWe could see that Snowflake could also provide us with the opportunity to work with both structured and semi-structured data within the same platform. It\u2019s design also means there is no longer a need for us to undertake indexing, partitioning or compression as that is all handled by the platform.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision to deploy Snowflake was also supported by the ability to operate under a flexible pricing model. This removed the requirement for an initial up-front capital investment as well as the pre-planning normally required and allowed costs to be dialled up and down as requirements change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Support costs slashed, batch processing reduced to minutes, security reinforced<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with technology partner Altis Consulting, the Sigma IT team completed the Snowflake deployment during 2021 and the company is rapidly enjoying some significant benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reynolds said: \u201cSelecting the right implementation partner with deep Snowflake experience and accelerators was critical in us meeting our tight timelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have been able to reduce our on-going support costs by more than 30% when compared with our previous on-premise infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlso, our batch processing jobs, which used to take between eight and 10 hours to complete now occurs in just under three hours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The capability to share data will also deliver benefits to the company. Where appropriate, data can now be much more readily shared with both suppliers and customers, improving efficiency and removing costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sigma is also sharing consolidated and deidentified data with its subsidiary entity company, Nostra Data, to support building better analytics for pharmacies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Snowflake platform has also helped Sigma to improve its level of data security. This is an important capability when the company is dealing with large volumes of critical and sensitive healthcare data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data access anytime, anywhere for a data-driven tomorrow<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Snowflake Data Cloud now fully operational, Reynolds said Sigma is looking forward to enjoying additional benefits in the future. Overall, the company\u2019s aim is to empower all internal teams through the democratization of data. This will be achieved by delivering appropriate and tailored data access anytime, anywhere across the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can see that Snowflake gives us a significant opportunity to further improve our business processes,\u201d he said. \u201cFor example, with increased accuracy in demand forecasting, we can drive substantial savings and improvements to our operations.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snowflake is supporting Sigma\u2019s strategy to \u2018build a data-driven tomorrow\u2019 that supports all staff, partners and customers. Part of this will involve the creation of a dedicated marketplace through which different data sets can be shared within the company as well as with external partners where appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reynolds said the company can now truly view its 10 terabytes of data as a valuable asset. This means Sigma can be much more nimble in responding to changing market conditions while also differentiating itself from the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe bottom line is that we are in the business of saving lives,\u201d Reynolds said. \u201cWe need to be able to reliably deliver critical medicine to those who need them within 24 hours regardless of where they are located in the country. Knowing, understanding and being able to access our data is an important resource that helps to make this capability a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sigma Healthcare has improved its data storage consolidation, access and internal data sharing practices with Snowflake. Snowflake, the Data Cloud company, has announced it has been chosen by Sigma Healthcare to underpin the company\u2019s strategy to improve its data storage consolidation, access and internal data sharing practices. As a leading Australian wholesaler and distributor of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":16347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,55,41,44],"tags":[3450,219,3452,3451,652,699],"class_list":["post-16345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-verticals-healthcare","category-oceania","category-storage","category-top-stories","tag-dean-reynolds","tag-health","tag-sigma","tag-sigma-healthcare","tag-snowflake","tag-storage"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16345"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16351,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16345\/revisions\/16351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/apac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}