Industry :

Retail

The Challenge

The client needed a robust analytics solution to gain deeper insights into their procurement processes and improve operational efficiency. Key challenges included:

• Providing senior management with monthly, quarterly, and half-yearly performance reports in a clear and consistent format.
• Ensuring data consistency across departments by sharing validated insights weekly.
• Extracting and preparing procurement data from ServiceNow web services, which required complex parsing and transformation before being usable.
• Managing data in formats unsuitable for direct visualization, requiring advanced data modeling and cleansing.
• Understanding domain-specific procurement metrics in order to create meaningful dashboards and KPIs.

• Consolidate and analyse data across locations and product lines.
• Implement secure, role-based access to sensitive data.
• Improve reporting performance and reduce manual effort.

Solution

A comprehensive data preparation and visualization framework was implemented, integrating Alteryx for data processing and Tableau/Power BI for reporting. The approach included:

1. Data Extraction & Transformation
   • Used Alteryx to connect with ServiceNow, parse unstructured data, and perform RegEx-based pattern matching.
   • Modeled and transformed data into Tableau-compatible .TDE files for efficient use.
2. Interactive Dashboards & Reports
   • Designed dual-axis charts, combo charts, heat maps, geographic maps, small multiples, and drill-through reports to provide multi-dimensional insights.
   • Developed calculated fields and parameters for custom KPIs aligned with procurement goals.
   • Built interactive dashboards tailored to management requirements.
3. Performance & MIS Reporting
   • Automated generation of daily, weekly, and monthly procurement reports.
   • Created MIS and performance dashboards for procurement and client service teams.
   • Designed standardized reporting formats for consistent communication across departments.
4. Publishing & Scheduling
   • Published dashboards and data sources to Power BI Online Services.
   • Scheduled refreshes (daily/weekly/monthly) to ensure real-time accuracy.

Business Impect

• Improved Procurement Efficiency: Senior management gained clear visibility into procurement KPIs, enabling faster and more accurate decision-making.
• Time Savings in Data Preparation: Automated data extraction and transformation with Alteryx reduced manual effort by over 40%.
• Faster Insights: Interactive dashboards allowed executives to drill down into procurement details instantly, cutting analysis turnaround times from weeks to hours.
• Consistency Across the Organization: Weekly reviews ensured that all departments had access to standardized, reliable data for planning and execution.
• Scalable Reporting Framework: The solution enabled easy addition of new data sources, KPIs, and visualization requirements without disrupting existing workflows.

Tools & Technology Environment

• Data Preparation: Alteryx (Parsing, RegEx, Data Extraction)
• Visualization: Tableau, Power BI
• Data Sources: Service Now Web Services