PayPal: Turning petabytes of data into real-time insights

Of course, you’ll have heard of PayPal. A world leader in online payments, money transfers and merchant services.

With 400 million active users across 200+ markets, it’s very much a global business. Committed to helping businesses enjoy a faster, more secure electronic payment experience.

PayPal had a treasure trove of merchant data at its fingertips. The problem was, it had no real way to analyse it, or present it in a clear, concise way.

The company wanted an app that would bring this data to life. Allowing C-suite leadership to simply open an app and assess PayPal’s business performance at a glance – and in real time.

But with petabytes of data to deal with, not to mention stakeholders that spanned the globe, there were complex challenges afoot.

PayPal is a truly global business. With an HQ in California, analytics teams in New York, delivery teams in India and of course CreateFuture in Edinburgh.

One thing was clear from the start: Navigating the global stakeholder dynamic would be complex.

To meet the brief we needed to:

• Design and build an internal mobile app that displayed live KPI information

• Navigate different management approaches, responsibilities, and time zones across three continents

• Deal with a vast amount of highly confidential business performance information, keeping security and confidentiality an essential priority

Discover

We dived headfirst into PayPal stakeholder interviews to uncover key needs and get a clear picture of key performance indicators like revenue, margin and customer density. By combining these insights with working prototypes, we gained a deep understanding of how these KPIs not only influenced decisions but also shifted based on the user.

Design

Over nine months, we collaborated with PayPal teams in the US and India to design and build the app. Leveraging the insights from our research, we crafted an app for iPad and iPhone that could deliver petabytes of data from PayPal’s internal data lake.

The app smartly presented users with real-time, relevant data, offering tailored insights based on their profile and behaviour.

We were always on call to provide support, bridging time zone differences and filling any information gaps.

Deliver

PayPal’s app, known as the Timely Management Information Services (TMIS) app, gave the executive team access to real-time KPI insights at the tap of a finger.

Given the sensitivity of PayPal’s operational data, we implemented best-in-class security techniques, including encryption, single sign-on and MDM integration with AirWatch, ensuring the highest standards of data protection.

We helped PayPal recruit an internal mobile team. And we trained the company’s in-house engineering team to use Agile methodology, helping them work more effectively and ensuring they could fully take over the maintenance and development of the TMIS app with confidence.

For the first time ever, PayPal’s executive team were able to get a real-time glimpse into how their business was performing. This meant they had easy access to insights from analytics, enabling them to make key decisions faster.

PayPal’s engineering team were equipped to take over the maintenance of the TMIS app and had increased mobile engineering capabilities – so they were fully independent.