R.S. Hughes, a leading retail distributor specializing in industrial supplies, faced a pivotal challenge. Known as the largest seller of 3M products in North America, the company was burdened by an ageing on-premises reporting system that needed to be improved sooner than later.
For more than a decade, R.S. Hughes had relied on an on-premises implementation using Hyperion to generate essential business reports. The process was burdened with inefficiency and the potential for inaccuracy, with employees manually extracting data and processing it in Excel. Although the approach provided basic insights, it was a time-consuming and error-prone process that did not scale with the company’s needs.
“We knew our reporting system was outdated,” said the R.S. Hughes IT leader. “We had some robust reporting needs that had been put on the back burner for a long time. And there was nothing native in our new ERP that would give us the reporting that we needed,” he said.
Migrating to a Modern Data Analytics and Reporting Solution
Recognizing this urgency, R.S. Hughes embarked on a transformative journey to revolutionize its reporting infrastructure, in an effort that coincided with the company’s ground-to-cloud ERP migration. It required the organization to rethink their approach to reporting and analytics, ensuring that any solution they chose would support the challenges of an upgraded ERP system and lay a foundation for future growth.
The company made the strategic decision to migrate to Microsoft Azure, adopting Azure Data Lake Storage and SQL resources to centralize data, along with Power BI to automate reporting and improve decision-making capabilities. JourneyTeam, a trusted Microsoft partner, became R.S. Hughes’ critical ally in the multi-faceted engagement.
Because Power BI connects directly to the data warehouse, the company is assured that critical business metrics are readily available and are refreshed throughout the day. Report creators can now use Power BI’s tools to develop dynamic visualizations and dashboards that both replicate and drastically improve the legacy Hyperion reports.
Azure data lake/warehouse storage now serves as a single source of truth: data pipelines that once refreshed daily are now updated multiple times per day, providing near real-time insights. Reports that previously required extensive manual manipulation are now automated, reducing errors and saving valuable time.
For details on the R.S. Hughes implementation and additional insights, read the entire customer story here.
User Adoption: The Definitive Test
As with any large-scale digital transformation project, the first measure of success is user adoption. In R.S. Hughes’ case, this was a two-fold process: first, to get a select group of team champions onboard and trained, and second, to roll out the new reporting processes to the entire company.
R.S. Hughes took advantage of JourneyTeam’s innovative Power BI Sherpa Program to provide the foundational skills necessary to prepare for the migration and the culture shift. “Sherpa made sense. We had a group of employees─ our data teams, our quality and compliance folks. We needed to start establishing a Power BI culture and understanding that could then be expanded to everyone,” he said.
Rolling it Out: Turning Potential Resistance into Readiness
R.S. Hughes’ team didn’t quite get the time they wanted to crawl and walk with Power BI before they had to run. As part of the ERP migration, they were tasked with rolling out the reporting system within a condensed, two-week window.
However, doing it so quickly required a broad and nuanced approach, which was addressed successfully by JourneyTeam’s Adoption and Change Management (ACM) program. ACM was a perfect fit for R.S. Hughes and provided the connective tissue, so employees understood the “why” behind the migration while giving them the skills to adopt the new system with confidence.
Measuring Success
R.S. Hughes’ cost savings has been nothing short of eye-opening. The company estimates they are saving 85 managerial hours per week, for a first-year financial savings of $257,111, and a three-year savings estimate of nearly $600,000.
Other intangible benefits that have set up R.S. Hughes for future success:
- Improved data accessibility through semantic models.
- Automated report generation driving accuracy and efficiency.
- A scalable Azure Data Lake storage solution seamlessly integrating ERP data.
- A modern architecture laying the foundation for advanced analytics and further innovation.
Moving On
R.S. Hughes is continuing to look for opportunities to expand their data capabilities. Now that they have a strong foothold in the Azure and Power BI world, they are considering the potential value of migrating and mining data from additional workloads.
Because the transition also involved expanding their Microsoft 365 and Power Platform licensing, they are planning to take further advantage of Azure’s endpoint management and security functionalities. “We wanted to modernize and as luck would have it, it all played cohesively into our plan of expanding our licensing level with Microsoft,” the IT leader said.
Let’s Talk
R.S. Hughes’ transition from an outdated reporting system to a modern, cloud-based Azure data architecture underscores the transformative power of Microsoft technologies. The company not only overcame its reporting challenges but also set a new standard for operational efficiency and data-driven decision-making. Be sure to check out the entire customer story here.
With JourneyTeam as a trusted partner, the company now has a clear plan for navigating the change and achieving long-lasting adoption. If you are considering a cloud migration or looking for assistance with change management and adoption, reach out to JourneyTeam today. We’d love to discuss how we can help ensure your success!
