Power BI solution for unlocking SAP data with enterprise reporting capabilities

Customer Overview

GEA operates a large-scale SAP environment to manage core business functions across sales, production, and finance. Despite the volume and value of data stored within this system, no reporting mechanism existed to extract or present it in a usable form. This engagement built the data pipelines, transformation logic, and reporting layer needed to turn raw SAP data into actionable business intelligence, accessible to users across the organisation.

Customer Profile

GEA is a global powerhouse in processing technology, delivering high-performance equipment and components to the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical sectors. Focused on mastering complex production processes, the international group provides everything from individual machinery and full-scale plants to advanced technology and comprehensive support services.

Customer Requirement

GEA had significant business data stored within their SAP system spanning sales performance, production output, and financial records. However, the organisation had no reporting mechanism in place to access or analyse this data. Users had no visibility into key metrics without requesting manual extracts or working directly within SAP, a process that was neither scalable nor accessible to non-technical stakeholders.

The requirement was to build structured data pipelines that could reliably extract data from SAP, apply the necessary transformations, and deliver it through a reporting layer that business users could work with independently, without needing technical intervention each time.

Our Solution

  • ETL pipelines built with Azure Data Factory and Databricks to extract, transform, and load data from the SAP HANA source system on a scheduled, automated basis.
  • Extracted data is loaded into Databricks Delta tables, providing a versioned, performant storage layer that supports both historical and real-time reporting queries.
  • Reporting delivered through two complementary layers to serve different user needs:
    • Power BI dashboards providing visual, self-serve reports on sales, production, and financial data for business users.
    • SSAS cubes enabling multidimensional analysis and ad hoc querying for more advanced analytical use cases.

Benefits

  • Business users can access sales, production, and financial reports independently without raising requests or waiting on technical teams for manual extracts.
  • SAP data that was previously inaccessible to non-technical users is now surfaced through intuitive Power BI dashboards, improving visibility across the organisation.
  • Automated pipelines eliminate the need for manual data handling, ensuring reports always reflect current data without additional effort from the team.
  • SSAS cubes support deeper analytical queries for power users, giving the organisation flexibility to explore data beyond standard dashboard views.