SUCCESS STORY

Power BI analytics on product, customer and returns data from SAP

Kagool migrated the client’s SAP-based warranty analytics from Polyvista to Power BI, enabling near real-time analytics on product, customer and returns data. The project was accelerated by Kagool’s Velocity product and delivered using Azure SQL Hyperscale as the client’s new data warehouse.

About the Client

The client is a global manufacturing company with more than 800 distributors and 18 manufacturing locations worldwide. They provide exceptional products and services for their customers’ homes and lifestyles, including plumbing products, furniture, tiles, engines and generators.


Fueled by the passion of more than 36,000 associates worldwide, the client strives to enhance the quality of life for current and future generations through design, craftsmanship and innovation.

The Vision

The client aspired to using data & analytics to gain insights into all the conditions and scenarios which led to product defects, in order to target their resources and development into improving these products. The aim was to improve product quality, increase customer satisfaction, and reduce the cost of warranty claims. Achieving these goals would ultimately improve customer loyalty and reduce business costs.

The client was using Polyvista for warranty data & analytics. But as part of their business transformation, they were migrating their data & analytics to Azure, to enhance their existing reporting capability and introduce new capabilities such as Machine Learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT) integration, and customer apps.

Polyvista reporting was integral to the client’s existing processes, and they had amassed years of business rules and complex logic in the system. Migrating Polyvista to Azure would require reverse engineering of this logic, and development within Azure, before the Power BI business reports could be created. Not only did the data need to support current reports, but it also needed to be future proof for self-serving purposes, so employees could create new reports to gain insights from the data.

Our Solution

Kagool and the client established a partnership based on Kagool’s Velocity product and capability to deliver solutions in Azure on SAP data. 


Kagool created standard warranty analytics reports in Power BI, which enabled a wide number of use cases to be fulfilled for the vast majority of users. We created a tabular model in Azure Analysis Services (AAS), which contained all of the business KPIs, and dimensions for filtering the reports.


Underpinning the AAS model was an Azure SQL Hyperscale data warehouse where the complex business logic, previously held in Polyvista, was implemented. 


The data was ingested from SAP ECC and SAP CRM to Azure SQL Hyperscale using Kagool’sVelocity product, which is hosted in the client’s Azure tenant.

Solution features

  • Power BI reports with self-service capability
  • Near real-time SAP ECC and SAP CRM integration using Velocity with Change Data Capture (CDC)
  • Azure SQL Hyperscale Data Warehouse tables developed using Azure Databricks
  • Semantic (tabular) model created in Azure Analysis Services (AAS)
  • End-to-end process automation using Azure Data Factory pipelines
  • Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) across all services
  • Business data secured in Azure Virtual Network (VNet)

Outcomes


The client now has a flexible, scalable and responsive data & analytics platform, which gives insights into products and services quality performance and the associated warranty claims.

The new warranty data platform is compatible with various potential use cases for the future, including: 


  • Predictive analytics run on Machine Learning (ML)
  • Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
  • Integration with the Internet of Things (IoT)
  • Integration with mobile applications, e.g. for customers

The data platform is an enabler for the client’s business transformation.

Benefits

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Effective decisions

Data-driven decision-making improves product quality and customer satisfaction

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Cut costs

Reduced cost of warranty claims

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Adaptable

Adaptable data model for continually evolving IT landscape

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Scalable

Cost-effective solution, scalable to future growth

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Innovative

Innovation ready data platform for leveraging AI, ML, the Internet of Things (IoT) and more

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