Sisk Group

Accelerating reporting and responsive decision-making for a leading Irish construction company

Azure AI Services & Azure Data Services | Codec Case Studies

Project at a glance

Challenge

Irish construction company Sisk relies on high and low-level reporting to monitor performance and progress across construction sites, teams, and the company as a whole. But since the company relied on manual data processing and aggregation, the best-available data was already outdated when it reached leadership’s desk.

Solution we designed

Codec has provided a suite of services to Sisk, to assist with the development and implementation of its data strategy. This has included formulation of data policies, specification of governance models, upskilling of Sisk personnel, design and implementation of a new data architecture.

Impact we delivered

  • A dramatically accelerated data reporting timeline, reducing aggregation and processing from five weeks to 24 hours.
  • Faster, more responsive strategic decision-making thanks to more timeline operations and performance data.
  • Improvements to how data is managed and how data enter is managed from input in systems of record, among other enhancements.
  • The ability to make strategic changes and refinements on a daily basis, rather than once a month.
Problem

Long reporting delays and inefficient aggregation

As businesses in other industries accelerated their data reporting through digital, cloud-based infrastructure, Irish construction company Sisk found itself reliant on manual aggregation and preparation of performance data that took four weeks or longer to deliver as a report.

Sisk relies on high and low-level reporting to monitor performance across construction sites, teams, and the company as a whole. These reports are then used to guide strategic decision-making at the board level. But since all data processing and aggregation was manual, the best-available data was already outdated when it reached the leadership team’s desk.

At the same time, Sisk believed its established processes for data aggregation and report analysis were integral to the organisation’s success. To transform its business analysis through digitised, automated and more timely reporting, the organisation needed to be convinced that this modern approach would be more efficient and valuable.

“Given the company’s success in relying on its proprietary approach to reporting and analysis, leadership had reservations about adopting new technology. Our consultants needed to show Sisk’s leaders that we weren’t aiming to replace their existing methods—we only wanted to make this process more efficient.”

Cian McNamara
Senior Account Manager, Codec
Solution

Modern architecture for a comprehensive data strategy

To determine the most beneficial approach to data reporting and aggregation, Codec’s consultants met with a wide range of teams across multiple levels within the business, including finance, health and safety, sales teams as well as departmental managers, with the purpose of understanding the different reporting needs faced by different units of the business.

Once those needs were understood, Codec began exploring different ways to address those data requirements within the capabilities of Azure Data & AI. Along with a flexible data governance framework, Codec designed a new data architecture for Sisk, and then proceeded with the implementation of this architecture. Sisk wanted a high level of self-sufficiency for data management and data reporting, so Codec has been assisting Sisk to develop and train their in-house data team.

Through the implementation of Azure Data Factory, Azure Data Lake, and Azure SQL Server for data warehousing purposes, Sisk was then able to extract and model data through shiny visuals and other reporting formats, resulting in reader-friendly reports that could be quickly generated to convey essential performance data.

8_solution
Results

Faster reports, and improved decision-making

Through its partnership with Codec, Sisk was able to implement a defined data strategy that enhanced the organisation’s data reporting and analysis capabilities whilst providing a solid infrastructure for continued data project development into the future.

Other highlights of this transformation included:

  • A dramatically accelerated data reporting timeline, reducing aggregation and processing from five weeks to 24 hours.
  • Faster, more responsive strategic decision-making thanks to more timeline operations and performance data.
  • Improvements in how data is managed and how data enters systems of record, among other enhancements.
  • The ability to make strategic changes and refinements on a daily basis, rather than once a month.

“We already thought of ourselves as a data-driven company. But Codec helped us implement the infrastructure and skills to realise the full value of data-driven decision making . Now, our in-house experts have the capability to lead data analytics and governance workshops by themselves.”

David Lafferty

IT Projects Manager, Sisk

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Azure AI Services & Azure Data Services | Codec Case Studies