Isabellenhütte is considered the oldest industrial company in Hesse. Now in its eighth generation, the former copper smelter has remained in family hands. One key to its longevity: alongside tradition, innovation has always been nurtured. Today, Isabellenhütte is a global technology leader in precision measurement technology and power resistors. Every day, vast amounts of data are generated, which could provide significant business advantages—if processed and made available in a targeted manner.
However, for a long time, an outdated business intelligence (BI) landscape stood in the way: “We were still working with a system based on IBM Cognos,” explains Joachim Heilig, Head of Inhouse Consulting at Isabellenhütte. “It dated back to 2009—before our SAP implementation—and was no longer supported.” Modern reporting for fast, fact-based decision-making was no longer feasible. “A reliable data foundation and automated, cross-departmental KPIs were missing. We wanted to reduce manual effort and initially provide flexible self-service analyses for departments such as Controlling and Sales. In the long term, this should be extended to the entire company. Industry 4.0 and Machine Learning were also on our near-future agenda.”

Data Strategy Assessment Provides Orientation

However, finding the right technology and implementation partner proved challenging. “There are so many players on the market. We reviewed numerous solutions and providers,” says Joachim Heilig. “Ultimately, Microsoft convinced us—not least through the ORAYLIS Data Strategy Assessment.”
For the Isabellenhütte team, the approach of conducting a detailed strategy workshop already during the selection phase was new. “Most competitors limit themselves to mere tool presentations. We also had some doubts about starting such a comprehensive project in a fully virtual workshop due to the pandemic.”
These concerns quickly disappeared. “Daniel Esser and Andreas Siemes from ORAYLIS immediately convinced us with their professionalism and approachable, down-to-earth manner. Under their guidance and through the structured workshop methodology, we were able to formulate and continuously refine our requirements at breathtaking speed—including analyzing pains & gains and stakeholder perspectives.”

New Visions for Digital Transformation

The Data Strategy Assessment identified and organized the key topics essential for project success. This resulted in a multi-year vision that far exceeded the original ideas and expectations: “During the workshop, it became increasingly clear that it made no sense to merely replace our old BI tool. Instead, we are now implementing a future-proof Modern Data Warehouse in the Azure Cloud—a company-wide analytics platform seamlessly integrated into our IT ecosystem with Power BI as the frontend.”
As a result, Isabellenhütte can fully meet its current requirements for company-wide data analysis. The highly scalable and tightly integrated Azure services also allow the digital platform to be flexibly extended in the future for new use cases, such as Data Science and Industry 4.0. At the same time, the Data Strategy Assessment provided all participants with a clear view of the next steps: “During the workshop, we already defined an initial lighthouse project, connecting our SAP sources to the new platform and implementing sales reporting in Power BI. The efforts were transparently estimated in a joint exercise, and the resulting decision document immediately convinced our management.”

Rapid Path to First Successes

In the follow-up project, additional data sources, such as production and process data, will be utilized. (Isabellenhütte)

Thanks to the precise elaboration of all workshop contents, the first components of sales reporting were successfully launched in record time. The offering has since been continuously expanded by the key-user team. Decision-makers at different levels now automatically receive up-to-date information based on uniform data and KPIs. If necessary, any employee can perform deeper analyses and gain additional insights.
But this is only the beginning, as Joachim Heilig confirms: “We are thrilled with the initial successes and can unreservedly recommend ORAYLIS. Despite the entirely virtual project execution, the team collaboration was excellent from the start, almost like a friendship. We experienced our consultants as a well-coordinated team. The atmosphere was always open, and the presentation of efforts was very transparent. Therefore, the follow-up project to further expand our Modern Data Warehouse is already planned—of course, again with ORAYLIS.”

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