Tad B.'s Senior Project Blog!

Today businesses are using data more than ever before, people are increasingly valuing experiences in addition to commodities, and, per Bloomberg Businessweek, the fast-casual industry is now a $440 billion market each year. In offering fully customizable, unlimited-topping pizzas at a generally flat price; making crafting a personal pizza into a customer experience; and experimenting with relocatable, low fixed-cost “cubes” and food trucks in place of expensive, retail-style stores, &pizza is rapidly growing and leading the charge. &pizza is focused on how data analytics can be used to help support its business growth and operational efficiency. Using data science, &pizza is exploring opportunities at every level of its business. How can data analytics be used to help &pizza to further maximize its revenue and business model success, or, depending on time and data, in what ways is data science used in the business world? Working with Head of Data and Guest Experience Darien Bates and the team at &pizza headquarters, I will be working at the intersection of how data informs key decisions for the business. In doing so, I plan to answer the research question through efforts currently slated to include exploring factors that impact and reflect changing customer value and loyalty at &pizza, examining the design and success of &pizza’s various marketing campaigns, and analyzing and conditioning data in &pizza’s cloud and databases. A report and presentation will be delivered at the end to communicate my findings.