OTTO, Germany’s leading web and catalog retailer, manages a high volume of data. But despite its size — 153,000 employees and 123 subsidiaries — the company maintains a relatively modest Splunk installation.

“We have about 63 different software systems running in the background, and all of them have to be monitored,” said Andre Pietsch, product owner/manager for the Otto Group. Pietsch sat down with John Furrier, cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during Splunk .conf 2015. “All of our data goes through the Splunk installation. Twenty of our subsidiaries are connected to the back end for data processing.”

Being where the customers are

Pietsch said that the company has had to radically shift its approach through the years. Otto started as a paper catalog company in 1949. In 1995, it put the catalog on the Internet. Now, Otto maintains one of the leading European online shopping experiences, mindful of both web and mobile users.

“As a retailer, you have to be where the customers are,” Pietsch said. “Instead of the catalog coming to the customer, the customer looks for what he is interested in.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Splunk.conf 2015.

Photo by SiliconANGLE