Situation

Our client, a rapidly growing global teahouse chain with over 100 locations, sought to modernize their reporting capabilities to keep pace with expanding operations. With increasing complexity across Sales, Operations, and Finance, their leadership required a centralized enterprise BI application capable of unifying data from more than 10 systems. They aimed to reduce reporting time by 40%, cut licensing costs by up to 30%, and deliver modern, visual dashboards to support faster, data-driven decisions at scale.

Approach

AArete partnered with the client to build a cost-effective, scalable analytics solution by integrating multiple data sources into a Microsoft SQL Server-based Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW). To reduce licensing costs, we evaluated various tools and recommended Talend as the ETL solution due to its open-source flexibility, while embedding Power BI as the application layer. We also developed a semantic layer for KPIs using Azure Analysis Services to streamline reporting. Taking a design-first approach, we modernized the existing dashboards and reports using Power BI best practices to enhance usability and insight generation.

Result

The implementation delivered a self-serve BI solution with modern visuals and near real-time sales insights, improving performance visibility across all franchise and head office locations. Optimization of over 40 optimized reports across Sales, Operations, and Finance reduced decision-making time by up to 35%. Cloud optimization improved reporting speed and scalability while cutting infrastructure costs by an estimated 20–30%, enabling the business to scale reporting needs without major rework.