Case study · Retail
Modern BI Platform Rebuild
Lakehouse + semantic layer + Power BI consolidation replacing legacy Cognos stack.
Key results
- Dashboard refresh -70%
- Reports reused +3x
- BI cost -31%
Context
A specialty retailer ran BI on a legacy Cognos platform with hundreds of reports accumulated over a decade. Dashboard performance degraded as data volumes grew; metric definitions varied between reports; the cost of the platform was disproportionate to the value delivered.
Challenge
Replacing the BI platform required migrating hundreds of reports without breaking the business cadence around them. The team also needed to introduce semantic-layer discipline so metrics agreed across reports going forward.
Approach
Thoughtwave delivered a 20-week BI modernization: lakehouse replacing the legacy warehouse, dbt + semantic layer for metric governance, Power BI for the new BI surface, and phased migration of the highest-value reports with lower-value reports retired rather than migrated. The team ended up with roughly 30% of the original report count — and higher usage across the remaining set.
Outcomes
Dashboard refresh time dropped 70% on the retained reports; report reuse improved 3× because the consolidated set received active attention; BI platform cost dropped 31% through the consolidation and modern-platform economics.
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