C U S TO M E R S TO R Y

Fueling global
innovation withunified analytics

We’re in an age where weneed to radically transformthe way in which Shell does
business, Databricks will
help us to do that.

DAN JEAVONS
GM of Data Science, Shell

DATABRICKS CUSTOMER STORY: SHELL

2

Fueling global innovation
with unified analytics
Shell uses Databricks to help democratize data globally and transform
into the energy company of the future

Shell has been at the forefront of creating a cleaner tomorrow by investingin digital technologies to tackle climate change and become a net-zeroemissions energy business. Key to its strategy is the challenge of mining large
volumes of data and leveraging analytics and AI to drive innovation forward.
Initially slowed by data processing at scale, Shell chose Databricks to be oneof the foundational components of its Shell.ai platform. Databricks provides
Shell with its Unified Data Analytics Platform that has empowered hundredsof their engineers, scientists and analysts to innovate together through thedemocratization of data analytics and AI.

MILLIONSof dollars saved in potential
engine repair costs

250
data team members supporting
160+ high-value use cases

9x faster
5 minutes to validate a label
reduced from 45 minutes

The usage of Databricks over the years has broadened significantly. We started out
using Databricks as a big data and AI platform but the scope has broadened. We havean entirely different class of citizen engineers and data scientists who are using it asa modern business intelligence tool to make smarter business decisions.

DAN JEAVONS
GM of Data Science, Shell

DATABRICKS CUSTOMER STORY: SHELL

3

The challenges of extracting
insights at scale
Throughout its 100-plus-year history, Shell has generated

the challenge to scale its data infrastructure for analytics,

pioneering ideas that have influenced the way webig data processing and machine learning. Shell’s data

consume energy.

strategy and Shell.ai platform were key enablers for“We, as an industry, are going through a massivetransition,” explained Dan Jeavons, GM of datascalability, which has helped to fuel Shell’s continued
evolution into an energy company powered by data and AI.

science at Shell. “Digital technology is absolutely
core to making our existing business more
effective and efficient. As the industry continues
to expand into new areas of energy that are moresustainable and reduce environmental impact,
data and digital technology are now table stakes.”
While digital transformation is a primary initiativefor every energy company, challenges remain withlegacy technology infrastructure, the complexities
of an exponential growth in data, and the lack of dataengineering and science skills needed to build datapowered solutions.
Shell has met these challenges head-on by creating a
Data Science Centre of Excellence (CoE), where teams
continually work to identify the highest value use cases
across the entire value chain. However, although they wereidentifying opportunities to innovate with data, Shell had

DATABRICKS CUSTOMER STORY: SHELL

4

Unifying data and AI acrossthe enterprise to fuel innovation
Shell chose the Databricks Unified Data Analytics Platform
as one of the key tools within the Shell.ai Platform. “We’rein an age where we need to radically transform the way inwhich Shell does business, the capabilities that Databricks
provides will help us to do that,” said Dan.
Databricks provides Shell’s data team with a scalable,
fully managed platform that unifies their entire data
analytics lifecycle. The interactive workspace has not only
democratized access to data but has fostered cross-teamcollaboration across data engineering, data science andthe analyst team. Databricks enables data scientists totrain their models in a more or less self-service manner
against entire data sets (both batch and streaming)and quickly deploy models into production. Even more
importantly the door has been kicked wide open foranalysts to also obtain valuable insights from their data.
“Shell has been undergoing a digital transformationas part of our ambition to deliver more and cleaner
energy solutions. As part of this, we have been
investing heavily in our data lake architecture. Our
ambition has been to enable our data teams toThis low barrier of entry has opened up analytics beyond
machine learning, including business intelligence andreporting. In fact, Shell’s focus on data and analytics hasenabled over 250 data analysts (or citizen data scientists),
and 800 citizen data scientists to be more productive withall the data available to them.

rapidly query our massive datasets in the simplest“The usage of Databricks over the years has broadened

possible way. The ability to execute rapid queriessignificantly. We started out focusing on Databricks as

on petabyte scale datasets using standard BI

a big data and AI platform but it has now become muchtools is a game changer for us. Our co-innovation

more. We have an entirely different class of citizen

approach with Databricks has allowed us toengineers and data scientists who are using it as a modern

influence the product roadmap and we are excitedbusiness intelligence tool to make smarter businessto see this come to market,” said Dan.

decisions,” said Dan Jeavons.

DATABRICKS CUSTOMER STORY: SHELL

5

Transforming Shell into
the energy company of the future
Shell’s CoE is now able to explore and deploy new data-“Databricks has proven to be of enormous value

driven solutions focused on improving supply chain

to Shell. The inventory optimization tool, which isoperations as well as unlocking high-valued use cases thatbuilt on Databricks, was the first scaled-up digitalbring to life differentiated capabilities for their customers

product that came out of my organization. as It

and their own businesses.

is deployed globally, across our businesses andrealizes millions of dollars of savings every year,”

From an operations perspective, one of the biggest

said Dan.

challenges any major industrial company faces isefficiently managing its inventory and supply chain.

Shell has also developed a recommendation engine for

Shell stocks thousands of spare parts across its global

its new loyalty program called Go+ . Running on Azure andfacilities, and its inventory analysts were struggling toDatabricks, the AI software can look at the full transaction

understand what level of spare parts they should holdhistory of a customer and use the information to tailor thein their warehouses. With Databricks, Shell was able tooffers and rewards to the preferences of the individual,

leverage its full historic data set to run 10,000+ inventory

combining their data with other aggregated data. This

simulations across all its parts and facilities. Shell’s
inventory prediction models now run in 45 minutes — downfrom 48 hours — significantly improving stocking practices
and saving a lot of money annually.

could range from promoting solar panels for the home ora coupon for a candy bar while filling up the car. “We’ve got
about 1.5 million customers in the UK who are using Go+,and we’ve issued 26 million rewards to date, and we are
now rolling out the core loyalty platform on a global basis
to support other markets.” said Dan.

OPTIMIZEDS U P P LY C H A I N
Predicting inventory maintenance andstocking issues to boost supply chain
efficiency and save millions annually

DATABRICKS CUSTOMER STORY: SHELLL O YA LT Y P R O G R A M
R E C O M M E N DAT I O N S
Sophisticated profiling models
deliver product recommendations
to 1.5 million customers

LUBRICANTA N A LY S I S
Leverage IoT sensors to monitor durabilityof large-scale engines and serve insights
to customers to reduce maintenance costs

6

Transforming Shell into
the energy company of the future
Data and AI have also unlocked new opportunities forcustomer samples in real-time using their historical data

Shell to engage with customers. Shell Remote Sense issets to provide their customers with real-time diagnostics

a new initiative focused on optimizing the durabilityon their lubricant’s performance. All of this is powered byand performance of large-scale engines on ships andDatabricks. Additionally, this is helping them move away

cruise liners.

from a labor and resource intensive process of collecting“We’ve been acquiring decades of lubricant
samples, which provide insights into engine
performance,” explained Dan.
Shell processes over 750,000 lubricant samples per annum
and delivers customer insights about lube oil quality andand sending samples to a lab, replacing it with a better
customer service by giving Shell’s customers real-time
diagnostics in the field via a web portal. This not only
saves customers potentially millions of dollars in thecost of repair or engine downtime, but Shell also saves
significantly on time and operational costs.

how it’s performing. However, by connecting IoT services
to the Azure cloud they are now able to ingest those

DATABRICKS CUSTOMER STORY: SHELL

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A data-driven culture thatdelivers results
Today Shell is redefining its boundaries of the oil and gas
industry through data and AI. With Databricks as a key
component of the Shell.ai platform, Shell is able to run
data analytics and deploy machine learning models that
improve operational efficiencies.
Using a common platform has empowered engineers, datascientists and analysts to be more agile, collaborativeand data driven. Shell currently has over 160 AI projects
running, and it’s only just getting started. In the comingyears, Shell aims to make leaps in technologicaladvancements powered by data and AI — from trillions ofIoT sensors all generating data to 3-D printed equipment
and parts that will disrupt the global supply chain andgreatly reduce costs.
In a time of unprecedented technological progress in theefforts to save our planet, Shell continues to lead the way
as one of the most innovative companies in the world.
Shell’s digital and IT teams play an important role in theevolution of Shell from a traditional oil and gas focus intoa sustainable energy— and Databricks is a key part of theShell.ai platform.

DATABRICKS CUSTOMER STORY: SHELL

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Shell has been undergoing a digitaltransformation as part of our ambition todeliver more and cleaner energy solutions.
As part of this, we have been investingheavily in our data lake architecture. Ourambition has been to enable our data teams
to rapidly query our massive datasets in thesimplest possible way. The ability to execute
rapid queries on petabyte scale datasets
using standard BI tools is a game changerfor us. Our co-innovation approach withDatabricks has allowed us to influence theproduct roadmap and we are excited to see
this come to market.

DAN JEAVO NS
GM of Data Science, Shell

DATABRICKS CUSTOMER STORY: SHELL

9About Databricks
Databricks is the data and AI company. Thousands of organizations worldwide —including Showtime, Shell, Conde Nast andRegeneron — rely on Databricks’ open and unified platform for data engineering, machine learning and analytics. Databricks
is venture-backed and headquartered in San Francisco with offices around the globe. Founded by the original creators ofApache Spark™, Delta Lake and MLflow, Databricks is on a mission to help data teams solve the world’s toughest problems.
To learn more, follow Databricks on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

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