POWER International: Applying real-time analytics and reporting to become an insight-driven organization
Explore POWER International’s journey with SAP
POWER International is the second-largest retailer of consumer electronics in the Nordic countries. The company wanted to migrate from an on-premise landscape to the cloud to enhance data warehousing. The SAP Datasphere solution enables real-time data replication, analytics, and reporting, helping achieve its goal to be an insight-driven organization.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Consumer products | Akershus, Norway | 6,000 employees |
faster data delivery due to real-time insights, from once-daily updates.
faster time to market for new data products and development.
hours saved in pipeline development annually.
Chief Information Officer, POWER International AS
Modernizing the IT landscape to better manage different data streams
POWER International AS operates a consumer electronics business with 269 stores and online shops across Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. With 90% of its 40,000 products flowing through a 110,000-square-meter central warehouse, an efficient flow of goods is crucial to optimize time to market. The retailer had several data sources, including omnichannel and e-commerce platforms as well as vendors and competitors. The 70 TB data warehouse processed more than 5 TB of data and 10 million transactions daily, with up to 6,000 employees and more than 200 suppliers relying on the output. POWER International was using SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) as its core software along with different technologies, such as the SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW) application and Microsoft SQL Server.
POWER International’s vision is to be top of mind as the go-to place for buying consumer electronics in the Nordics and to provide an excellent customer experience. As the business size and needs expanded, the IT landscape was under pressure. The company therefore wanted to modernize and find a solution to manage the several data streams that feed into the data lake. It sought to efficiently, cost-effectively, and securely transfer data from its on-premise data warehousing application to a cloud environment. In doing so, it wanted to avoid losing context and minimize process reengineering.
Head of Data and Analytics, POWER International AS
Advancing from traditional reporting to action-driven analytics
Building on its use of SAP software and Google (from its omnichannel operations), POWER International chose SAP Datasphere to integrate data from SAP BW with Google’s BigQuery data analytics platform. The SAP Datasphere solution enabled the business to extract raw data from tables in SAP ECC and then use the replication engine to handle the data load going from the SAP solutions to Google Cloud. Finally, the raw data was loaded directly into the corresponding tables in BigQuery.
Previously, the company generated large static reports and batches of data overnight. Each morning, the data analytics team had to check their mobile devices to see if they received the report because the process was often disrupted. Now, employees can perform their own analyses independently whenever they wish, promoting a true self-service analytics environment without direct involvement from the IT team. For example, in an important campaign presently running in Norway, employees can follow the sales data on their devices throughout the day. This wasn’t possible before. The change allows for a much quicker transition from idea to final data product, driving the shift from traditional reporting to action-driven analytics.
Also, POWER International is democratizing access to insights with the use of the SAP Analytics Cloud solution and third-party reporting tools. The company’s business users can take advantage of SAP Analytics Cloud on SAP Business Technology Platform to access embedded and predictive analytics and business intelligence capabilities. See the figure for the company’s IT architecture.
Head of Data and Analytics, POWER International AS
Improving agility in the data landscape to enhance decision-making
Using SAP Datasphere allowed POWER International to smoothly move its data from the on-premise application to a cloud platform. It found the solution to be intuitive and easier to use and monitor. The data-service partnership between SAP and Google as well as support from the Customer Success Office at SAP helped with the straightforward transition. Combining SAP Datasphere and Google BigQuery contributes to generating cost savings and optimizing inventory and staff.
The original batch-oriented process in data warehousing meant the business received updated sales reports just once a day (in the morning). SAP Datasphere allows it to replicate data every five minutes, every hour, or in real time throughout the day. This is a game changer because the readily available data enables the company to improve analysis and decision-making. Deploying the solution has helped enhance stability in everyday operations and deliver a good user experience for employees. The improved operating landscape increases job satisfaction for the data analytics team, as they can spend more time on creating value rather than on technical back-end solutions.
POWER International produces reports for many stakeholders with unique needs, such as vendors. With SAP Datasphere, the company can deliver reports faster and share insights more efficiently. Frode Næss Larsen, POWER International’s CIO, concludes, “Being agile and flexible in our data landscape and reporting solutions is very helpful. When we need a new report or a vendor wants information, the time to market for an idea to actual report and insight is so much faster. Whereas before, lots of ideas never materialized into reports or projects, now this is possible.”
Chief Information Officer, POWER International AS
Creating advanced data products
With its core foundation in place, POWER International plans to start building new data products with information from the SAP solutions that are now in Google BigQuery. It would like to use the data in the cloud platform to design advanced offerings, such as more-sophisticated forecasting models to optimize inventory. It could then employ SAP Datasphere to feed that output into the ERP application. In other words, the business could create orders or suggestions in BigQuery and send them to the ERP application to generate the orders based on comprehensive collaboration between the systems.
Other steps in POWER International’s IT journey include modernizing its ERP with SAP S/4HANA, implementing fresh front-end analytics, and rolling out a new point-of-sale system across the company.