Crelan’s move to a modern BI environment

Sales dashboards for the more than 600 agents, the follow-up of marketing campaigns, … : these are just some of the areas Crelan wanted to have a better view on, thereby leveraging the power of all the latest functionalities available via modern analytics. It is why they decided to migrate their current reporting system to a BI environment which offers more possibilities.

How did Crelan realize this move to a modern BI environment in less than 6 months? Marc Roels, IT Product Owner at Crelan, explains how the process went and the benefits gained from this change.

How it all started

Marc Roels, IT Product Owner at Crelan: “We decided to replace our legacy system back in 2021 because we knew that a new environment with the latest technology would enable us to get more value out of our data, optimize costs, and better analyze data with state-of-the-art visualizations. Replacing our legacy system meant that the new solution had to be faster and more efficient, all while respecting the latest security protocols. When looking for a partner to help us with this project, we were immediately convinced by Vynta’s well-thought-out approach and their broad expertise with different modern technologies.”

Alexandre Roland, Sales & Operations Manager at Vynta, continues: “It is true that we attach great value to our customer-centric methodology, as we appreciate that every company has different needs and there is no one-size-fits-all.

That is why we prefer to start with a full audit of the current situation, before selecting the best environment for our customer.”

Marc Roels: “Not only did we want to have the latest dashboards with modern functionality, but we also wanted to complete the project within 6 months of starting the mission to be fully operational by the end of year.”

Alexandre Roland: “The first thing we do on new projects is listen to our client’s needs. Beyond hearing the opinions of the IT team, we believe it is crucial to also receive the input of the business, i.e. those who actually use the analytical tool on a regular basis. To achieve this, we organize quite a few workshops to challenge the teams and understand what they really want, and continue these workshops throughout the process to keep everyone aligned. Based on this input and a complete audit of requirements, we knew we could cope with the challenging timeline of Crelan.”

The project: 6 months to migrate around 100 legacy reports to Power BI

Marc Roels: “We asked Vynta to compare two different analytical tools: we wanted a proof of concept for both technologies and also a comparison of both architectures.”

Alexandre Roland: “Following the first workshops, we prepared a global inventory of their current situation. This helped us map out what the business really needed, and enabled us to select the best solution to meet their requirements. Up to that point, the legacy system had merely let users extract data and create operational reports. Our new system would enable the business users to better understand the meaning behind the data via improved visuals and more easily accessible details.”

Marc Roels: “We clearly understood that we needed a new analytical tool to better understand why certain numbers went up or down. Like that our business team could dig for insights into the data warehouse and make better decisions.”

Alexandre Roland: “After analyzing the two alternatives for Crelan, we did a pilot to show both solutions live using their own data. We ended up recommending migrating their legacy system to an architecture with Analysis Services Cubes, and – for the front-end – Microsoft Power BI and Paginated Reports. The goal was to keep Data Governance practices with a secured and certified model, and give users self-service opportunities by connecting to this model.”

Change management: bring users along for the ride

Marc Roels: “Importantly, we also needed to take the users on a journey to switch over to the new system. Vynta helped us with this as well, as they trained a small number of Crelan people who could go out and train the agency staff: a sort of ‘train the trainer’ model.”

Alexandre Roland: “We ended up teaching 5 people from the business how to operate the dashboards and create their own reports. Crelan staff and their agents now fluidly use the system, as training, coaching and tips & tricks for report usage were part of the package. It was good to have both teams pushing for a quick solution: this was essential in delivering the working model within 6 months of starting.”

Marc Roels: “Vynta drove the process forward very systematically with meetings once a week with IT and business separately, and one with everyone together. To this end, we also asked marketing to test drive some of the reports developed during the process, to make sure the change management was handled as smoothly as possible.”

The outcome: a modern, self-service environment for Crelan

Marc Roels: “15 months on, we’re happy to report that everything is going well. In the end, Vynta migrated around 100 reports to a modern, self-service environment. Our users (the agents) are more empowered, and we have met both the business demands of marketing and the requirements of the IT team with regards to security and infrastructure.”

Alexandre Roland: “The strength of this project lies in the fact that we have enabled the team to create dashboards themselves to get the necessary insights and take the right decisions. Next to that, we have also put in place an alert system, which allows Crelan and their agents to easily follow up on certain KPIs regarding customers.”

Marc Roels: “Analyzing the usage of Power BI shows us that the main reports for all agencies are checked at least 4,500 times per month. This shows the importance of having involved our agencies throughout the process and the real success of this project!”