Automotive Parts Manufacturer

Data Model and Business Intelligence.

An Overview

The Challenge

An automotive parts manufacturer was frustrated with their existing reporting and analytics process. They were having issues extracting the data they needed from their source system and were unable to report on all the data they needed to see the full picture.

The Solution

2nd Watch started by conducting several interviews with business users to define the insights they needed, locate the data they needed, and determine the KPIs and metrics they needed to measure. The data was then extracted from all the sources and made ready for analytics and reporting.

The Outcome

They now have performant and trusted reports and an extensible and easy-to-maintain modern data model with a good foundation they can use to build out any future metrics and confidence across the organization in their reporting.

01

The Overview

2nd Watch built out a simple, easy-to-maintain modern data model and process for business intelligence that allowed executives to analyze insights they can trust in their day-to-day business operations.

02

The Challenge

The client was frustrated with their existing reporting and analytics solution. They had issues extracting the data they needed from their source systems, struggled with poor dashboard performance, and did not trust the metrics from their current dashboards. Furthermore, the client was experiencing performance problems on their transactional ERP system due to the current analytic reporting architecture.

The client turned to 2nd Watch, a recognized leader in modern data and analytics solutions, to:

  • Define the right business rules, metrics, and KPIs based on their industry and goals.
  • Remove the manual process required for updating, creating, and refreshing dashboards.
  • Enable business users and executives to measure the business based on consistent and accurate data.

03

The Solution

2nd Watch started by conducting several interviews with our client’s business users to define the business rules and determine what logic should be implemented in order to build dashboards with meaningful KPIs and metrics. We analyzed their current stored procedures and views. Then we optimized the code to increase performance and reliability in the data.

Once the metrics, business logic, and code were in place, 2nd Watch designed and developed a reporting model to optimally feed the Power BI dashboards. In the end, we were able to deliver visualizations with more than 15 key metrics to executives surrounding sales, revenue, forecasting, and budgeting:

  • Net Sales
  • Revenue
  • Orders
  • Forecast
  • Revenue Projection
  • Budget vs. Revenue Projection
  • Standard Margin
  • Days to Ship

04

The Outcome

The client is now able to get trusted daily insights they can leverage to make better-informed business decisions. They have performant and trusted reports and an extensible and easy-to-maintain modern data model. Due to 2nd Watch’s solution, the client now has a good foundation they can use to build out any future metrics and confidence across the organization in their reporting.