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Sandvik Coromant, a global leader in tooling, has upgraded its legacy IT systems by migrating to Microsoft Azure and adopting Power BI. This change helps the company consolidate large amounts of data from its worldwide operations, providing a clear view of the business and enabling better data analysis.
After the migration, Sandvik Coromant cut reporting times from weeks to hours, expects to save 30% on IT infrastructure costs, and can now make business decisions faster.
Key Takeaways
- Sandvik Coromant moved from a complex on-site system to a modern cloud-based setup on Azure.
- The company now uses Power BI for advanced data analysis, replacing manual work and numerous Excel spreadsheets.
- The upgrade has greatly lowered overall costs and made it faster to launch new features.
- Now, the company gets faster data updates, can use self-service tools, and gains better insights into how the business runs.
The Challenge of Data Overload
Sandvik Coromant, founded in 1942, operates in over 150 countries and has more than 7,900 employees. The company collects huge amounts of data from sensors, operations, and different systems.
In 2006, it built a global sales data warehouse using Microsoft SQL Server. As the system grew more complex, the company began using Microsoft Excel for data changes and SQL Server Reporting Services for reports. This led to thousands of spreadsheets being shared, making it hard to get a complete view of sales.
By 2016, the old system, which ran on more than 10 physical servers, could not keep up with new business needs, especially regarding faster response times and reduced data delays. The system supported almost 3,000 users every day and became overloaded. Keeping the hardware running was expensive and time-consuming. IT staff had to spend many hours on maintenance and updating reports, which could take up to two months and slow down important business decisions.
Embracing a New Cloud-Based Solution
With limited resources, growing system needs, and rising hardware costs, Sandvik Coromant looked for a long-term solution. The main goals were to reduce costs and accelerate the launch of new features. The company used Azure Data Factory for easy data integration, Azure SQL Database for flexible and fast data storage, and Azure Analysis Services for data modeling.
Power BI brought real-time dashboards, automatic data updates, and interactive visuals, helping employees across the company. The new system had to connect more than 20 production sites, handle more data, refresh information quickly, offer self-service tools, and keep pace with business changes over the past ten years.
The company wanted to be data-driven, which meant having easy access to high-quality, fast data for deep analysis using statistics and algorithms. The main goal was to give leaders timely, useful, and accurate information by making data efficient and well-organized.
Modernization with Azure and Power BI
Moving to Microsoft Azure and using Power BI has changed how Sandvik Coromant manages and analyzes data. This update made it easier to bring data together, improved access, and gave employees self-service analytics tools.
To help everyone use the new tools, the company set up training programs with workshops and custom learning materials. They also offered ongoing support and chose internal champions to help others during the change. The new cloud system can scale and adapt, helping the company use its data more effectively to stay competitive and support future growth.
Sources
Spargent Analytics
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