Topaz needed a Business Intelligence (BI) platform that could better inform the business, improve customer satisfaction, and help steer the strategic direction of the company. By leveraging existing Microsoft investments, Ergo Software Solutions built a BI platform that allows users to interrogate transactions, benchmark against key performance indicators, and quickly create reports to share with the business.

The Business Need
Following a period of acquisition, Topaz became the largest service station and convenience retailer in Ireland. The company employs around 1,400 people and carries out 1.5 million transactions a week across 300 sites.

Following the deployment of a new ERP system, the company’s management identified a Business Intelligence (BI) platform as the next priority. Every aspect of a large and complex business is run out of the company’s head office, where keeping track of transactions and inventory was difficult and time consuming. Margins in fuel prices are always changing and fast moving consumer goods sold in its forecourts are notoriously difficult to track. IT staff would spend two days a week gathering information from disparate parts of the business, a waste of resources that only delivered limited insights into the business. Real-time reporting tools would give the business the visibility it badly needed to achieve its goals.

“We are committed to the idea of ‘lean retailing’, driving waste out of the business by constantly reviewing and improving processes,” said Frank Gleeson, Retail Director. “We were relying on a few people producing a lot of reports on a periodic basis, but you can’t make decisions without access to the relevant data. Unless you have dynamic tools to give you the information, you have a problem.”

The Solution
Topaz is a long-standing Microsoft customer with wide ranging products that include Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2. After a meeting with Ergo, the company realised that these components could be configured into a BI platform. Having signed an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft, Topaz was already paying for the software so the plan was to bring the components together around a centralised data warehouse with the reporting tools on top.
 
SQL Server was used at the warehouse layer, database software that provides the foundation for the BI platform. Every transaction entered into the Topaz electronic point-of-sale system is automatically uploaded to the SQL data warehouse on a nightly basis. From here, Ergo software engineers built the bridge to the reporting tools, a series of data cubes that handle the preset queries that analyse the database.

At the presentation layer, SharePoint provides the dashboard for corporate reports and scorecards, all accessed securely according to the role of the user. Excel Services within Excel, the spreadsheet software that is a staple part of Microsoft’s Office suite, is used to drill directly down into the cube. PerformancePoint services in SharePoint provide the tools and templates used to compile reports that can be run on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on the business requirement.

The Benefits
The solution gives Topaz one centralised data warehouse for all retail sales data. Employees across the company have been empowered to generate BI reports from their desktop. Depending on their level of access, they can use familiar applications to build and publish to the company intranet for other staff members to view. Rules determine how the data is analysed and accessed, maintaining a single version of the truth at all times.

Best of all for Topaz, a sophisticated reporting environment has been built by leveraging existing Microsoft investments. With the help of Ergo, the company has acquired a high-end reporting system at considerably less cost than other BI tools.

As far as Frank Gleeson is concerned, the Microsoft BI solution is a significant step forward for the company on a number of levels. Firstly, it empowers the business and makes it more competitive. “It is dynamic, accurate, and easy to use. We have access to valuable data that was locked up in disparate systems. We can get at it quicker, analyse it, and make it more relevant for the business going forward,” he said.

Category managers can dig down into sales of particular soft drink or instantly see the effectiveness of a special promotion. Above all, they can fulfil a primary objective of Topaz, using the information to make tweaks and changes to improve customer satisfaction and drive customer retention.

“Visibility will ultimately drive business performance, using all the data available for benchmarking and key performance indicators. It’s all about continuous improvement and we have achieved it without spending a fortune,” said Gleeson. “Without tools to give you an overview of the business, you are flying blind and you can’t make the best decisions.”

Secondly, it replaced a painstaking reporting process that lacked real time insights and sucked up people’s time. “We have smart people in here. Rather than have them crunching data I want them analysing the data and making changes to make the business more efficient,” said Gleeson.

Plans are already in place to build on the solution, using PowerPivot, an in-memory analysis engine from Microsoft, an add-in to Excel 2010 and SharePoint 2010 that provides self-service analysis for business users from multiple sources.

To date, the project has exceeded Gleeson’s expectations. “I’m a discerning customer and don’t give credit unless credit is due. We’re tough on ourselves and tough on our suppliers. We expect them to deliver projects on time, and in budget to the specifications we want. On that basis, I’d find it difficult not to recommend Ergo. They were a very good partner to work with,” he said.