Azure AI Services & Azure Data Services | Case Studies

Project at a glance

Challenge

International construction company Sisk relies on high and low-level reporting to monitor performance and progress across construction sites, teams, and the company as a whole. Sisk needed to reduce the manual preparation time required to produce the pack of monthly management reports, and to achieve ‘on demand’ reporting in certain areas of their business.

Solution we designed

Codec provided a suite of services to Sisk, to assist with the development and implementation of its data strategy. This included formulation of data policies, specification of governance models, upskilling of Sisk personnel, and the design and implementation of a new data architecture.

Impact we delivered

Improvements in data integrity and data management across a set of input sources.
Facilitation of organisation culture change, through the promotion of KPI reporting.
Reduction in preparation time for management reports.
Upskilling for Sisk IT leadership and the internal data team at Sisk.

Problem

Extensive manual preparation required for report generation

Construction company Sisk relies on high and low-level reporting to monitor performance and progress across construction sites, teams, and the company as a whole. These reports are used to guide strategic decision-making at the board level. However, with increased scale and complexity in the business, the reporting preparation time had become onerous. Some of the key monthly management reports required 4 days of preparation, and Sisk needed to make these processes more efficient.

At the same time, Sisk believed its established processes for data aggregation and report analysis were integral to the organisation’s success. To transform its business analysis through digitised, automated and more timely reporting, the organisation understood this modern approach would be more efficient and valuable.

"Sisk leadership understood the importance and value of being a data-driven company, but Codec were instrumental in helping us set up and develop the infrastructure, governance and in-house capabilities that are the foundations to enable us to fully realise the value of data-driven decision making"

David Lafferty

IT Projects Manager, Sisk Group

Solution

Modern architecture for a comprehensive data strategy

To determine the most beneficial approach to data reporting and aggregation, Codec’s consultants met with a wide range of teams across multiple levels within the business—including finance, health and safety and, pre-construction teams, as well as function leaders —with the purpose of understanding the diverse reporting needs faced by different units of the business.

Once those needs were understood, Codec began exploring different ways to address those data requirements within the capabilities of Azure Data. Along with a flexible data governance framework, Codec first designed a new data architecture for Sisk, and then proceeded with its implementation. Sisk wanted a high level of self-sufficiency for data management and data reporting, so Codec also assisted Sisk in developing their own capabilities and training their in-house data team.

Through the implementation of Azure Data Factory, Azure Data Lake, and Azure SQL Server for data warehousing purposes, Sisk is enabled to extract and model data with real-time visualisations and other reporting formats, resulting in reader-friendly KPI reports that can be quickly generated.

Results

Reduction in reporting preparation time, and improved decision-making

Through its partnership with Codec, Sisk was able to implement a defined data strategy that enhanced the organisation’s data reporting and analysis capabilities whilst providing a solid infrastructure for continued data project development into the future.

Other highlights of this transformation included:

Improvements in data integrity and data management across a set of input sources.
Facilitation of culture change. The inputs from Codec have facilitated a change in organisation culture at Sisk, by enabling a switch from lengthy tabular reports to focused KPI reports.
Reduction in prep time for reports. In some cases, for example payment reconciliation, reporting preparation time was reduced from 4 days down to 1 hour.
The architecture implementation is providing the foundation for a ‘just in time’ approach to reporting, and Sisk is already leveraging the benefits of on demand reporting in some areas of their business.
Trusted adviser for Sisk. The Codec team worked in a very collaborative fashion with Sisk, enabling Sisk to benefit from their experience of similar implementations. The trusted advice from Codec informed strategic IT decision-making at Sisk, and contributed to the upskilling of the Sisk team.

"Codec has been our trusted adviser in this process. Their data consultants have experience from numerous projects, so they had the expertise to guide us on our data strategy, and they readily shared their knowledge to help with the upskilling of our internal team"

Charlie Corcoran

IT Enterprise Architect, Sisk Group

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Accelerating reporting and decision-making for a leading construction company

Project at a glance

Challenge

Solution we designed

Impact we delivered

Extensive manual preparation required for report generation

Modern architecture for a comprehensive data strategy

Reduction in reporting preparation time, and improved decision-making

Charlie Corcoran

Let us deliver impact for
your organization

Accelerating reporting and decision-making for a leading construction company

Project at a glance

Challenge

Solution we designed

Impact we delivered

Extensive manual preparation required for report generation

Modern architecture for a comprehensive data strategy

Reduction in reporting preparation time, and improved decision-making

Charlie Corcoran

Let us deliver impact foryour organization

Let us deliver impact for
your organization