"For more than a decade, our collaboration with Cepheo has played a crucial role in shaping PMC Hydraulics' data management and reporting capabilities," says Anders Bäckman, CIO at PMC Hydraulics.

"It all started with one goal ‒ to create a unified reporting system for our group. Cepheo's assistance was central in the initial development of a system that combined data from various ERP systems and provided us with a reliable source of sales and procurement information. That laid the foundation for the reporting model we use today."

Anders Bäckman, CIO at PMC Hydraulics, expresses his appreciation for Cepheo's support and expertise, saying:

"Our collaboration with Cepheo has been a vital part of achieving our data management goals. They truly understand our needs and our way of doing business and have been a key partner in this process, which is why we've continued our collaboration with Cepheo even when other vendors were involved."

Microsoft Power BI has changed everything

The recent migration to a cloud-based Microsoft Power BI solution marks a milestone in the collaboration with Cepheo and is a significant step forward for PMC Hydraulics. By moving away from the complexity of a combination of Business Intelligence solutions and individual Excel-based tables and visualizations, they have created a more standardized and intuitive approach to data management and reporting.

Anders Bäckman emphasizes the importance of the Cepheo BI for Microsoft solution, which plays a crucial role in extracting data from their Microsoft Dynamics AX solution to Azure SQL Server and making them available to users in Microsoft Power BI. He adds:

"The migration to Power BI has changed everything for us. Now, we can streamline our reporting process across the entire organization and gain a deeper understanding of our data."

Since the solution was implemented in June 2022, it has brought remarkable improvements in information-flow and decision-support, Anders explains:

"Power BI enables our team to access and visualize data in near real-time, providing valuable insights that were previously hidden in spreadsheets. Although we have not fully tapped into the potential of Power BI yet, it has already made us more efficient and provided our employees with the business data and insights they need in their daily work."

With a consistent and reliable data source, the organization can reduce the risk of errors and ensure that its teams can access reliable data and actionable insight when they need them most. This enables making faster and more informed decisions, giving PMC Hydraulics a competitive advantage in the market.

"Standard, standard, standard"

Cepheo has an approach that emphasizes creating solutions that are based on standard components. This aligns well with Anders Bäckman and PMC Hydraulics. "My, and PMC Hydraulics', approach to IT is 'standard, standard, standard'."

"Most of what a company like ours needs can be handled with standard components and solutions. Our experience shows that it's much more efficient to stick to standard than to custom-build new solutions or components," says Anders Bäckman, adding that maintaining the same principles in this area has been crucial for the longstanding relationship between PMC Hydraulics and Cepheo.

PMC Hydraulics' dedication to standards is best exemplified by their stringent approach to scope management, where any deviation from standard components requires high-level management approval:

"It should be an active decision to deviate from standard, as this helps to better maintain the project's original scope," explains Anders Bäckman.

Continuous development and increasing trust in data

In the longer term, PMC Hydraulics has ambitious plans to further leverage the capabilities of Microsoft Power BI. Anders Bäckman outlines the next step, which focuses on the continued development and expansion of Power BI usage. The organization aims to enhance its data visualization and reporting capabilities and extract even greater value from its data.

"We prioritize building trust in the visualizations we use in Power BI to avoid employees wasting time exporting raw data to Excel and creating their own charts," says the CIO.

The introduction of a standardized reporting model in Power BI enables PMC Hydraulics to proactively respond to market trends and customer demands. With a focus on continued development and expansion, PMC Hydraulics is poised to unlock even greater potential with Power BI and solidify its position as an industry leader that is driven by data and informed decision-making.