Moving from an IT landscape with many separate applications to having a company-wide ERP system puts a lot of pressure on the entire organization. This was also true for NorSea.
As the new ERP system was being implemented based on data and processes from many other applications, there was an increasing and urgent need for qualified reports from both the old and new systems. Therefore, the plan was to phase in the new ERP system, one location at a time, which meant running both old and new applications parallel across the organization.
The Challenge
There were three challenging aspects; firstly, ensure a smooth transition to the new ERP system, including better data quality, master data, and sufficient data capture in all operational processes. Secondly, providing management reports of finance, HR, and operations during the implementation and thirdly, extracting data from all discontinued applications, both for historical reporting and finance compliance.
How NorSea solved it.
Using Xpert BI, NorSea was able to, very efficiently, extract data from all relevant applications into a SQL Server database and quickly start creating reporting models for the various domains. The different business process owners had already begun documenting their processes as input to the ERP system implementation. Therefore, the business logic and reports were implemented quickly using SQL Server, T-SQL, Analysis Services, Excel, and Power BI. In parallel, Xpert BI was connected to the new ERP system from the beginning, and simple data quality reports were created. This helped the ERP implementation team to ensure the correct process rules, data entry fields and user interfaces and integrations were set up correctly from the very beginning.
Long-lasting results
When the ERP system was live in the entire organization, NorSea had control of the data, the processes, and a range of administrative and operational reports from the beginning. This has ensured transparency and acknowledgment of the GIGO/SISO* concept and created a high motivation for qualified data capture.
Many years later, NorSea still uses Xpert BI as an automation and documentation tool for their data warehouse. The solution has become a very operational solution, with near-real-time data updates, data from over 20 different in-house and external sources, and a wide range of company-wide used Power BI reports and dashboards.
*GarbageInGarbageOut/Sh**InSh*Out
