Skip to content
Customer Success

Move to Snowflake streamlines financial reporting for fast-growing coffee company

This coffee chain’s existing SQLServer database could no longer handle the volume of data generated by the new POS system. They contacted Pythian for help with a simpler, faster way to analyze store performance-including migrating to a modern cloud platform and robust data warehouse.

Cloud_lev3_hero_R

Overview

Industries

Consumer Goods & Services

Locations:

US

An aging SQL Server infrastructure meant compiling POS reports in Excel spreadsheets for this growing coffee company. Finance lacked current, actionable data and IT didn’t possess the required expertise to implement a cloud solution on their own. Pythian worked closely with both teams to uncover a custom solution.

A Snowflake Data Cloud hosted on an Azure cloud was implemented and now processes more than half a billion POS records at near real-time speeds. Finance can drill into line-item order detail and IT can track and allocate cloud usage and costs–creating scalability and unlimited capacity for data analysis.

What we did

Pythian began the engagement with a collaborative workshop with finance and IT stakeholders. This facilitated session uncovered a number of must-have requirements, including:

  • Demand for near real-time data insights
  • Compatibility with Microsoft Power BI
  • Cloud usage tracking and ability to chargeback costs to various departments
  • Plug-and-play simplicity to reduce the complexity for internal staff
 
 
 

Technologies used

 
  • Snowflake Data Cloud
  • Microsoft Azure Cloud
  • Microsoft Power BI
  • SQL Server
  • Xenial POS System

Key Outcomes

After just six months, the Snowflake Data Cloud already stores more than a half billion POS records for analysis. Finance loves the dramatically simplified reporting process. Instead of consuming days (or weeks) of manual work to compile data for analysis, the team can make decisions with near real-time data. 

IT likes the platform’s ease of use, which frees the limited team resources for other uses. The IT organization can now set up virtual data warehouses in Snowflake, which let them monitor activity by users and departments, and then charge back cloud computing costs accordingly.

Explore our Cloud Migration Services

No matter your business, no matter the challenge: Pythian’s solutions drive results.