PRMC: transforming the reporting and analytics capabilities

The Challenge

PRMC and Compass Consulting Group have experienced continued growth, along with competitive pressures in the marketplace, leading to an increased  focus on the importance of data and analytics. Initially, some progress has been made in building a data warehouse to support reporting and analytics. The system continued to evolve, demanding significant maintenance and support time from resources that could be more productively utilised on other activities. PRMC and Compass Consulting Group aimed to optimise, extend and transform their reporting and analytics capabilities. The immediate need was to operationalise, harden and automate existing data integration processes. Additionally, senior leadership sought to strategically enhance insights in the data, analytics and reporting areas to create efficiencies and differentiate PRMC and CCG in their respective marketplaces by developing and offering new services and products. 

The first challenge for PRMC and Compass Consulting Group was the continued growth and other competitive pressures in the marketplace, which increased the need to focus on data and analytics. 

Another positive challenge was transitioning to new technology to handle the expected data growth and complexity, which required enhancing the systems and processes. 

The Approach

The project was completed using a divide-and-conquer approach. In phase one, we focused on standardising, automating and optimising current data load processes and updating the data model to align with the dimensional modelling design. In phase two, we designed, developed and implemented the initial set of reporting deliverables. This included setting up the new reporting environment selected during phase one and implementing ongoing maintenance and administration of the regular and recurring data load processes developed during phase one. 

In the third phase, we added capabilities to the data model and data load processes developed in phase one to incorporate many business processes and models that currently require significant manual intervention. In the fourth phase, the platform was changed and processes were further optimised. 

The project’s support is ongoing, with additional optimisations being made. 

The Impact

Complex reports are generated much quicker, which enables real-time data analysis. ETL processes and DW helped the client (PRMC) manipulate, track and utilise their reporting capabilities more extensively. One essential approach we always take is to analyse the cost of their cloud services, aiming not only to conduct the analysis but also to estimate and plan potential cost reduction with them.