How does an international luxury house regain control of data scattered across more than 80 environments worldwide? To meet this challenge, Qim info is working with the Microsoft Azure ecosystem to design a data hub that centralizes, transforms and supervises these data flows.
This strategic project illustrates just how decisive data governance is for business performance, in particular by enabling :
- data centralization on a single platform,
- flow supervision to guarantee quality and reliability,
- the provision of a unified BI system for international business management.
Context and challenges of data centralization
As an international player in the luxury goods and watchmaking sector, the company needed to set up a central data hub to manage the collection, transformation, integration and availability of its data. This information comes from a variety of operational systems and feeds more than 80 environments worldwide.
The aim is to lay the foundations for a unified and consistent Business Intelligence (BI) system, so that each subsidiary has the same indicators to manage its business. In concrete terms, this involves three priorities:
- Adopt a metadata-driven approach to designing the data hub,
- Set up a highly automated architecture capable of supporting future use cases,
- Deploy a supervision platform to ensure processing quality and reliability.
Qim info is responsible for translating these ambitions into a concrete solution, drawing on its expertise and the Microsoft Azure ecosystem.
Business Intelligence (BI) refers to the set of methods and tools that transform data into usable information, often through dashboards or interactive reports. Its aim is to provide decision-makers with a clear, reliable view of their business, enabling them to manage performance and anticipate change.
Solution deployed by Qim info
To meet the objectives defined by the company – to simplify its data architecture, automate processes and implement comprehensive monitoring – Qim info designs, implements and deploys a complete solution based on the Microsoft Azure ecosystem. The approach combines rigorous methodology, relevant technological choices and the mobilization of dedicated expertise.
The project relies on a team of three developers and a data architect, mobilized for 660 days, guaranteeing the solidity of the solution from conception to operational deployment.
Data hub and Sell-in/Sell-out system
Qim info designs a central data hub, i.e. a platform that collects, transforms and redistributes data from different systems. Unlike a simple data warehouse, the data hub doesn’t just store data: it organizes data flows and distributes them to a wide range of environments, while guaranteeing consistency and quality.
In this context, Qim info also integrates a Sell-in/Sell-out system designed to ensure complete sales tracking. This system tracks two complementary flows: sales from the company to its distributors (sell-in) and sales to end customers (sell-out). This double reading gives the company a consolidated view of its sales performance, enabling it to fine-tune its marketing strategies and optimize inventory management.
Requirements analysis and architecture design
An essential stage in the project consists of a structured collection of business requirements, followed by a benchmark of market solutions. Qim info then designs, in collaboration with Microsoft, the company’s future Data architecture , designed to be scalable, secure and aligned with expected use cases.
Proof Of Concept (POC)
To validate technical choices, several PoCs (Proof of Concept) are carried out:
- Data ingestion from a MySQL database into Google Cloud Platform via CDC, then replicated in Snowflake hosted in Azure,
- Comparison of the existing solution with Fabric to confirm the robustness and efficiency of the proposed architecture.
A Proof of Concept (PoC) is a small-scale technical experiment designed to validate the feasibility of a solution. In a data project, it enables concrete scenarios to be tested, such as the integration of new sources or the performance of an architecture, prior to large-scale deployment. The aim is to reduce risks, confirm technological choices and secure investment.
Data flow supervision
The solution also includes an Azure supervision platform dedicated to data flow governance. This interface ensures permanent control of :
- pipeline execution,
- refresh Power BI reports,
- flow consistency,
- key performance indicators.
Thanks to this system, management has access to a consolidated, reliable view, reducing the risk of errors and boosting confidence in the data.
To learn how to create a powerful Power BI Dashboard, read our article Power BI Dashboard: our top tips .
Data hub technologies and BI tools
For this project, Qim info relies on a range of complementary technologies. Each plays a specific role in the centralization, automation and exploitation of data. Together, they form the technical backbone of the data hub and guarantee its long-term performance.
- Snowflake: data centralization and processing with optimum scalability.
- Fivetran: automated ingestion with ready-to-use connectors.
- Azure Synapse Analytics: execute complex queries and accelerate BI reports.
- Azure Data Factory: flow orchestration and supervision of data pipelines.
- Azure Machine Learning: development of predictive use cases and enrichment of business intelligence analyses.
- Azure Data Lake Storage: secure, scalable storage for large volumes of raw or transformed data.
To find out more about data collection, read our dedicated article
here
.
BI project results
The project carried out with Qim info radically transforms the company’s data governance and delivers tangible results:
- A consistent BI experience, now shared by more than 20 subsidiaries, guaranteeing a common reading of performance indicators.
- A simplified, automated and supervised architecture, capable of handling increasingly complex use cases and supporting future growth.
The result is a unified BI system and a scalable architecture, ready to support the company’s strategy over the long term.
This achievement demonstrates Qim info’s expertise in data governance applied to the luxury sector. Find out also how the Swiss ESN designed a cloud data platform data platform for a major watch manufacturer.
Qim info: data and BI experts
With over 600 employees and offices in Switzerland (Geneva, Lausanne, Zurich, Basel) and France (Annecy, Lyon), Qim info combines expertise and proximity to bring large-scale data projects to fruition.
Our consultants are experts in cloud environments and Business Intelligence: data hub design, Sell-in/Sell-out systems integration, pipeline automation and Azure supervision. They design scalable architectures capable of managing large volumes of data and meeting real-time analysis needs.
Qim info also supports the transition to hybrid cloud platforms and the industrialization of workflows, to ensure performance, flexibility and governance.
Contact our experts to add value to your data.
