The problem
A leader in the midstream oil and gas industry needed to access and analyze numerous large data sets to generate financial and forecasting reports. The company had accounting data from its ERP, forecast data and volumetric operational information all being managed with different storage and reporting tools. To generate reports, individual staff members uploaded data into spreadsheets and shared files, so by the time reports were generated, the data was already old. In an industry where financial performance is often determined by razor-thin profit margins as well as futures and derivatives, companies need up-to-date information to succeed.
“Large transaction ERP systems are designed for transactions; they are not designed for analysis,” said Blueprint Director of Solutions Development Eric Vogelpohl. “It is a natural tension in the world of databases. Databases either want to be high performance transactional systems or they want to be analytical systems. They are rarely both.”
The Blueprint Way
Blueprint began by designing and building a Tabular BI engine, which allowed the company to combine financial and projection data previously stored in programs such as Peoplesoft and Hyperion, into one on-prem data warehouse, giving the company vastly improved financial visibility. This analytical business intelligence system uses a fundamental, repeatable design pattern on the Microsoft BI technology stack that marries directly with Power BI to quickly design and launch dashboards and graphical reports.
To ensure the program’s ongoing success and scalability, Blueprint also staffed a position at the company to troubleshoot any potential problems and build future enhancements into the solution.
For the first time, time the company was able to analyze all its data together and in near real-time, discovering trends, patterns and correlations that not only improve corporate performance management, but give the company the ability to consistently operate at a profit and outperform their competitors.
