Facilitating Better Business Decisions with Azure

As the IT and Quality Director at Facq, Nicolas Van Caster faced an interesting challenge. He wanted to develop a business insights solution that empowered the company’s point-of-sale (POS) team leaders — without removing any of their accountability to make decisions. In short, he wanted to gather more targeted insights from the data available to these leaders and enable the data-driven mindset that Facq has championed throughout its 140-year history.  

To meet this goal — and set his company up for future success — Nicolas partnered with element61, a data analytics provider and Microsoft Advanced Specialization Partner based in Belgium. Together, the companies have developed a business insights tool powered by Microsoft Azure.

The need for a practical solution

Facq is a Belgium-based provider of sanitary, heating, and renewable energies distribution for professionals in the construction sector. They operate a B2B model, serving installers and plumbers across the country through 46 points of sale, 16 showrooms, and three warehouses.  

Across this significant sales network, one of the biggest challenges was managing stock and inventory at each point of sale.

Up until recently, the company’s POS team leaders would receive monthly reports from the head office with various data points around their inventory levels — and it was up to them to review these reports and make decisions from them. However, there were three primary challenges with this model:

1. There was too much data. POS team leaders would receive over 100 pages of data, and would have to sift through them all to get a clear picture of what was going on.  
2. The data was (often) too late. As the reports came at the end of every month, there were times where POS team leaders would be told about low inventory levels when it was too late to mitigate the impact on consumers.  
3. The data was not targeted enough. In the 100 pages of data, there was no clear indication as to which data point indicated a problem that needed addressing.
   
   

Instead of this fairly unstructured approach, Van Caster and his team realised that they needed a cloud-based solution that could help them deliver more actionable insights — and someone that could help them build it. That’s where element61 and Microsoft Azure came in.  

Facilitating data-driven decision making

Together with the team at element61, Facq has developed a business insights platform that empowers their POS team leaders. They started by establishing performance and operational indicators, understanding that while the first helps identify problem areas, the second is key for identifying the potential solution to that problem.  

They then built the platform using a modern data platform approach, powered by Azure. At the front-end, users engage with a Microsoft Power BI dashboard that’s easy to use and simple to understand. This was not a one-and-done process. For Van Caster and element61, iteration and collaboration with the end users was key. As such, the build process was made up of various two-week sprints, where they requested feedback and inputs from the POS team leaders and other key stakeholders. This level of collaboration gave these employees a sense of ownership of the product before it was even fully deployed.

Today, POS team leaders have access to a simplified dashboard that surfaces the right data at the right time, giving them the information they need to replenish stock in a proactive manner. Not only does it present problems that need addressing, it also automatically provides the suggested steps needed to remedy those problems. For these employees, the change has given them more ownership and accountability for making decisions that improve how the business operates.

In addition, the company is also seeing benefits at the business level. Now, when competitors don’t have enough inventory, installers and plumbers are turning to Facq, driving up sales and revenue as a result. Plus, each POS is able to be more agile in responding to seasonal fluctuations in demand, which are common in the construction sector. It’s a true testament of how connecting the dots between operational performance and business strategies can deliver true value. 

Where Facq goes next

The business insights solution has become an important tool for Facq’s POS team leaders — but the team isn’t stopping there. According to Van Caster, Facq and element61 are currently working on expanding the cloud-based solution for their warehouse teams to show them real-time KPIs in a centralised dashboard. Even further ahead, the team plans to find ways to adopt automation and machine learning capabilities to optimise operations, while still empowering their employees with ownership and accountability.