Enterprise data platform rollout for a national logistics group
Twelve source systems consolidated into one governed warehouse, taking monthly reporting from nine days to under two – without pausing day-to-day operations.
Client
Northwind Group
Industry
Logistics & distribution
Services
Data & Analytics, Cloud
Duration
18 weeks, 5-person team
The challenge
Nine days to answer a question that closed last week
Finance, operations and customer service each maintained their own reporting. Numbers disagreed between departments, so leadership meetings spent their first hour reconciling spreadsheets rather than making decisions.
Two previous attempts at a warehouse had stalled: one on architecture debate, the other because nobody owned the source data. The group needed a delivery route that produced usable output in weeks, not quarters.
- Twelve source systems with duplicated customer and shipment records
- No agreed definition of core metrics such as on-time delivery
- Reporting team spending 70% of their time on data preparation
Our approach
Four decisions that made the difference
Fix the metrics first
Before any pipeline work we agreed 24 core metric definitions with their owners.
Ship a vertical slice
One shipment domain went end to end in four weeks, proving the pattern before scale.
Automate the quality gates
Tests block bad data at ingestion instead of surfacing it in a management report.
Pair with the reporting team
Two analysts joined every sprint so ownership transferred before go-live.
Project gallery
Selected screens and diagrams
Results
Measured at handover
78%
Less reporting time
12
Systems consolidated
99.9%
Pipeline success rate
2 days
Month-end close
Client feedback
They rebuilt our reporting in a quarter after two previous vendors had spent a year on discovery. The difference was discipline: a written plan, weekly demos and no surprises.
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