BI Consulting to Consolidate Data of 30+ Businesses for Conglomerate-Wide Analytics

Summary

A multi-billion-dollar conglomerate ran 30+ independent businesses whose data was locked inside each one, blocking initiatives like a 360-degree customer view and a group-wide loyalty program. INNERLUXES provided BI consulting — examining each business on site, gathering requirements, and designing a high-level analytics architecture with a justified technology stack drawn from a 16-tool comparison. The result gave the Client bird's-eye reporting across all businesses and a standardized, scalable approach to integration.

About the Client

The Client is a conglomerate running 30+ businesses worldwide — spanning fields such as oil and gas, travel, and FMCG wholesale and distribution — with total revenue measured in billions of dollars.

Data Locked Inside 30+ Independent Businesses

Operating many businesses that were completely different in nature and fully independent in IT infrastructure, the Client had operational data locked within each one. The lack of data integration across the businesses prevented initiatives such as a 360-degree customer view and a conglomerate-wide loyalty program. Anticipating further growth — where a new business should slot smoothly into the existing IT environment — the Client also needed a standardized approach to integration, plus a bird's-eye reporting view spanning all business directions. It commissioned INNERLUXES to propose a high-level architecture and a technology stack for each architecture component.

On-Site Discovery and a Justified Architecture

The project began with an on-site visit, where INNERLUXES's BI consulting team held Q&A sessions with the top management of each business. The consultants examined the as-is infrastructure and existing processes — sales pipelines, for example — and identified problems and integration gaps. The team gathered the stakeholder requirements for the future analytics and reporting tool: near-real-time data processing, multi-dimensional data modeling, fast ad-hoc reporting, and a mobile view for reports.

Based on these findings, the consultants designed a high-level architecture with three technology stack options. To justify the technology choice for each architecture component — enterprise service bus, ETL, data warehouse, and analytics and reporting — the team ran deep analysis, narrowing each component to four technologies as agreed with the Client, for a final shortlist of 16 tools. To assess each set, the consultants devised dedicated parameters, such as:

• Fault tolerance and support of streaming for the enterprise service bus.
• Data extraction performance, data quality assurance, and master data management for ETL.
• Structured data processing, support of multi-dimensional cubes, and in-memory data processing for the data warehouse.
• Advanced analytics, mobile and tablet views, and support of self-service BI for analytics and reporting.

After presenting the specifics of each solution and discussing the Client's strategic business initiatives, the team produced the final version of the high-level architecture and technology stack.

A Scalable Architecture and a Justified Tech Stack

At the end of the project, the Client received a top-level architecture that enabled bird's-eye reporting and the much-needed integration across its disparate businesses, while letting the group scale easily thanks to a standardized integration approach. The Client also got a comprehensive report justifying the technology choice for each architecture component — complete with cost estimates and multi-angle analysis of every technology considered.

Methodologies

Q&A sessions, functional decomposition, business requirements analysis, comparative analysis.