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Interview with Martin Petry on Big Data
Martin Petry became Hiltis CIO in 2005. He is responsible for 400 IT professionals based in Schaan (Liechtenstein), Tulsa (Oklahoma) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). Since 2009 he is also in charge of Hiltis Business Excellence initiatives. Martin Petry joined Hilti in 1993 and has held various international leadership roles. Martin Petry launched and continues to lead Hiltis global SAP implementation cum business transformation project (standard global data structures and business processes supported by a single global SAP system with ERP, BI, CRM and SCM now being used by 18,000 Hilti employees in more than 50 countries). Martin Petry earned his PhD in applied mathematics from Georg-August University in Gttingen, Germany.
DOI 10.1007/s12599-013-0253-9
This is also caused by the nature of data a high proportion of unstructured data that we can currently only with great (manual) efforts see in a context of new business opportunities that would allow us to look even beyond current products and services.
BISE: Big Data in the eyes of a CIO of a globally leading corporation serving the global construction industry sounds unfamiliar. Why is Big Data a topic for the Hilti Corporation?
Petry: Hilti is a premium brand and an innovation-driven company applying a direct sales model. Our innovations are focused on customer needs: Our 200000 customer contacts every day are therefore our most important resource for innovation. Every customer contact a question, a comment, or in the best case a product or service order generates data.As Hilti has the competitive advantage of 200000 daily customer contacts, the analysis of these data and gaining new insights into how Hilti can serve its customers in an even better way, are main drivers why Hilti is looking into the topic of Big Data.
BISE: Hilti is one of the rst companies using SAP HANA databases in productive environments why did Hilti choose such a rst mover approach and what benets do you expect?
Petry: Hiltis IT department is like Hilti overall an innovation-driven organization. In-memory technology, such as e.g. SAP HANA, for us is a way of exploiting the potential of our data. HANA does not per se deliver value by speeding up generating reports. The real value of in-memory technology is the...