ABInBev & endjin

Using Data Science to answer business questions that traditional BI tools can't.

Anheuser-Busch InBev is the world's largest brewer, with a heritage dating back more than 600 years, spanning continents and generations. Already considered one of the largest fast-moving consumer goods companies in the world, they are committed to driving growth and always looking for new opportunities and ways to improve.

In 2016, AB InBev sought out help from endjin to enable a new capability in their global data team around using advanced analytics tools and processes. Through a combination of hands-on exercises, interactive labs and collaborative workshops, endjin guided the team through exploring a real-world use case to get new insights from publicly available data. From defining testable hypotheses, selecting and preparing data and training and evaluating predictive models, endjin demonstrated a structured process to experimentation, whilst introducing them to new data science tools such as Jupyter Notebooks and Azure Machine Learning to explore data and develop models.

With Azure Data Factory orchestrating the complex data processing and Power BI displaying interactive custom visualizations AB InBev had an end-to-end productionized data science solution that served as an extensible architectural template for future analytical workloads.

AB InBev also used endjin's Data Science Toolkit to kickstart their advanced analytics journey - with notebooks and videos covering example experiments, and templates and scripts for productionizing models, the Toolkit provides valuable resources for teams looking to accelerate their capabilities in data science.

The assets endjin left us with in terms of data preparation are excellent for the future.

— Marko Trninic, Senior Director - Innovation & Analytics, ABInBev

The combination of process, tools and resources allowed AB InBev to be self-sufficient and find answers to difficult questions that they would not be able to do with "traditional" BI tools. Armed with this new capability, they're now able to use data in new ways, exploring new opportunities for improving and driving growth in order to stay ahead in a fast-moving market.

Anheuser-Busch InBev brews up game-changing business solutions with Microsoft Azure

ABInBevRetail & Consumer Goods

ABInBev isn’t just a beverage company, it’s a technology company. From its Beer Garage in Silicon Valley to its Global Analytics Center in Bengaluru, India, the company known as AB InBev is pushing the innovation envelope.

Machine Learning - the process is the science

James Broome03/02/2016

What do machine learning and data science actually mean? This post digs into the detail behind the endjin approach to structured experimentation, arguing that the "science" is really all about following the process, allowing you to iterate to insights quickly when there are no guarantees of success.

Machine Learning - mad science or a pragmatic process?

James Broome02/19/2016

This post looks at what machine learning really is (and isn't), dispelling some of the myths and hype that have emerged as the interest in data science, predictive analytics and machine learning has grown. Without any hard guarantees of success, it argues that machine learning as a discipline is simply trial and error at scale – proving or disproving statistical scenarios through structured experimentation.