AB InBev GCC Uses Azure Synapse Analytics and Power BI for E2E Automation and Increasing Efficiency

Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) is the world’s largest brewer. Based out of Belgium, the company has a deep history of brewing and a portfolio of brands including Budweiser, Stella Artois, and Corona. AB InBev always dreams big, as it’s rooted in their culture and heritage. AB InBev strives to create a future that everyone can celebrate, with more cheers around the world. 

For AB InBev, having quick access to data and insights is a key pillar in enabling decision-making. Data drives all aspects of our products, from production to inventory to sales. Competing within a market that is rapidly changing, AB InBev relies on quick and effective access to high-quality data to be able to drive Business value. While AB InBev’s Command Center team was already using Power BI for all their visualization needs, they were sourcing data from numerous large excel files and the system was unable to handle high volumes of data. This meant slow data refresh times and even failure, taking nearly 90 minutes for data to be updated. 

With the current platform being overloaded, the Command Center team led by Alexander Komrakov, Senior Manager Tarini Das and Manager Devendra Nagar focused on fixing the backend performance and come up with an E2E solution that could increase accuracy and delivery speed. The Command Center team was looking for a solution to expand reporting and bring extra features, like machine learning, to a new platform. The solution would deliver relevant data to users at lightning speed, in an end-to-end automated solution directly pulling from a centralized data source for near real-time insights.

The team realized that their long-term automation goal would require moving all their data from its existing platform into a new Azure Data Lake, an estimated 6 to 8-month process. As a result, the team created a short-term automated solution with Azure Synapse for Power BI to access data while the migration was taking place from the existing platform, allowing stakeholders to still have access to their critical information.  

Creating an Automated Foundation for Reporting

Since AB In-Bev was already using Power BI, choosing Azure Synapse to support their data platform made the most sense, as Synapse seamlessly integrates with Power BI and the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem.

The Command Center team used Azure SQL sandbox methodology - a method that allows the BI team to use the performance of SQL Sandbox for data transformations & calculations and use Power BI only for the visualization. 

When building out the interim Azure SQL Sandbox solution, the first step was consolidating the data. To prevent the increase in manual work, a high priority was given to automate the movement of Excel files. Users across the organization upload their Excel files to a SharePoint drive. To ensure files were standardized before being used, an automated process via Logic apps, VBA validates the file format, file size, upload time, and more. Once all these features are validated, the file is posted to a new, restricted-access SharePoint folder. This ensures that data can't be moved or removed without proper access. 

Once data is properly processed in the SharePoint folders, it’s temporarily moved into Azure Blob Storage’s high performance file system automatically using Azure Logic Apps. From there, Azure Synapse pipelines trigger stored procedures using dedicated SQL pools. This helps offset some of the loading time and improve Power BI performance. A SQL script is then run to create a final table of data and subsequently notify admins via e-mail that the table is ready. Based on a successful notification trigger, Power Automate will automatically refresh Power BI on the node and an automated email will be sent out to the SME to approve release of the Dashboard.

By using Azure Synapse pipelines, AB InBev’s Command Center team was able to automate what before was a very time-consuming part of their ETL pipeline and reduce refresh times by 91%. Synapse effortlessly works with tools like Logic Apps, Power Automate and Power BI to easily bring together all their data sources and ensure the data which users rely on is high-quality and accessible. 

Bringing Real-Time Insights to All Corners of AB InBev

With this new data platform and pilot, the team was able to take this solution forward for all complex reporting while they waited for long term data migration to be completed. For AB InBev, Power BI fit their organizational needs by handling different data sources, providing increased efficiency, and reducing operational costs. 

One of AB-InBev’s most used dashboards is the Rate & Mix dashboard. The Rate & Mix dashboard tracks the mix of Brand, SKU, Variant and Price. Volume metrics highlight how many products were sold and the Rate highlights the price at which product was sold and whether the product was discounted or not. With this product, the Commercial, FP&A and Revenue Management teams can use these metrics to understand how products are performing in the markets. The products has multiple tabs that enable deep dives and further analysis. 

The ease of use with Power BI visuals has empowered individuals across AB InBev to easily access insights to aid decision making and help react to the market quicker.  

Building an Insight-Driven Future

Adoption of Power BI across AB InBev involved gradual growth lead by a top-down approach. While many individuals were hesitant to learn a new tool, advocacy from leadership and seeing the effectiveness of Power BI convinced users of the value of Power BI and how it could improve their daily workflow. With the influx of Power BI users, AB InBev built a Power BI Center of Excellence to build products enabling insights across the AB InBev ecosystem.

AB InBev is looking to bring together all their data into one data lake within the next 3-5 years. By consolidating their data pipeline, they plan to fully automate their data flow and improve performance even more. AB InBev is constantly growing and as a result, the organization is always pushing to build a single source of the truth and bring disparate data sources and tools together. Unifying all their data into one data lake will set AB InBev up for easy data integration. 

With an automated back end supported by Azure Synapse and Data visualization supported by Power BI, AB InBev has the powerful, competitive edge that empowers users to focus on decision making and react to the market even quicker.

Disclaimer –This post represents the personal views and opinions of the team members involved, based on their experience, and does not necessarily represent the view and opinion of AB InBev.  No Warranties, Promises and/or representations of any kind, expressed or implied, are given as to the nature, standard, accuracy or otherwise of the information provided in this article nor to the suitability or otherwise of the information to your particular circumstances. AB InBev is not liable for any loss or damage of whatever nature (direct, indirect, consequential or other) whether arising in contract, tort or otherwise, which may arise from your use of the information in this article, which is provided as is and without any warranties.