The customer
Boon Food Group: A Family Business with a Rich History and a Clear Vision for the Future
Boon Food Group, based in Dordrecht, is a family-owned company with a history spanning over 136 years. What started as a small candy shop has grown into a dynamic food business with more than 2,500 employees.
The fourth and fifth generations of the Boon family are now at the helm. The company operates the MCD Supermarket and Boon’s Markt chains and provides tailored food solutions for the healthcare sector through Zorgboodschap.
In addition, Boon Food Group has a strong export division with NLfood and BFG Trading, specializing in the export of Dutch and European non-food and food products.
Background
Suppliers stop providing Excel files for the audit reports
By actively promoting sustainability and providing insight into the supply chain, BOonf Food Group aims to obtain the Better Life Label through an external audit.
The data for this audit is partly supplied by suppliers, initially in Excel files.
This data is then supplemented with internal data, such as waste and sales information. Due to the labor-intensive process of processing this data, an effort was made with the suppliers to find a more efficient solution.
Although Boon still receives data, it is now only provided in raw .xml files, which they need to process further themselves.
Challenge
The reports are essential, but there is no time to develop them in-house.
Since the provided data is crucial for the audit, an efficient workflow was sought. However, the time available to develop a report that transforms raw data into usable information and combines it with internal data for a mass balance was limited.
Since Boon works with Birds BI on a daily basis, they asked us to solve this issue using BI.
This time, the request was not to develop reports for the executive team or management, but specifically to create a mass balance report tailored to the needs of an external auditor.
Solution
Transforming raw data into insightful reports
We proposed periodically loading both internal and external data into the Birds BI data warehouse, structuring it there, and performing central calculations.
This eliminates the need for separate Excel files and creates a single data source, giving the end-user, including the auditor, much more flexibility to thoroughly analyze the data in Power BI.
Result
A complete Power BI report, optimized for the audit
The raw data is transformed into valuable insights, combined with internal data, and presented in a clear mass balance report within Boon’s Power BI environment.
Here, the data is visualized and categorized in a logical way, and the end-user has all the tools to thoroughly analyze it.
What we’re especially excited to share is that the auditor was very enthusiastic about the Power BI report. He mentioned that he had never had such a clear and organized report available before.
Conclusion
Birds BI can be used for more than just ERP data reporting
With this case, we want to demonstrate that Birds BI is not only used for reading and structuring ERP and industry-specific data for C-level executives or management.
It can also be used to create detailed Power BI reports that combine internal and external data sources, aimed at other levels within the organization or external parties, such as auditors.
