An operation with 115 production facilities that serves more than 150,000 customers every week generates a lot of data. AmeriPride Services, Inc., one of the largest uniform rental and linen supply companies in North America, aims to set itself apart from the competition by focusing on analytics and data.

Steven John, CIO at AmeriPride Services, and Tony Ordner, information team manager at AmeriPride Services, down with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Paul Gillin (@pgillin), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during the HPE Big Data Conference to talk about their data differentiators.

Focusing on data quality and analytics

“As we move into a SaaS model, it’s more about configuration as opposed to customization,” said John. “We’re focusing on the quality of our data and on the analytics around that data.”

Ordner added that the company’s 125-year history gives it solid foundation to build from. “We have a lot of stability built in,” he said. “That gives us a great starting point to launch newer analytics platforms to help us better understand our customers and partner more closely with them.”

John said AmeriPride uses data not just to empower the executives and the marketing team, but also the delivery people who come into contact with customers every day.

“We’ve put a large emphasis on mobile capability and putting that in the hands of our customer-facing employees,” he said. A tool on a driver’s mobile phone will give him his route and specific information about each customer. The driver will know if a contract is up for renewal soon or if a customer had a problem with its last delivery.

“The idea is to get visibility and transparency with the customer,” John added. “The next step is to start putting those devices in the hands of the customer so that they can be proactive and use their smartphone to purchase additional service or product.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the HPE Big Data Conference.

Photo by SiliconANGLE