Stellar & thl

thl has a large complex operation that demands a large volume of data to be collated and synthesised. This data is used to drive real-time operational reporting at retail branches. Management reporting is vital in supporting the revenue and finance functions, marketing teams and fleet management at head office, and strategic and board-level reporting.

The challenge

thl was in the process of implementing a new cloud-based booking and fleet management system to replace their legacy systems. As part of this process, existing operational and analytics reports had to be migrated to cater for the new data source formats and business rules from the new system.

As part of the cutover from the old system to the new system, the business required that all reporting from the new system be available from day one since data is used for operational purposes supporting customer bookings, marketing, fleet scheduling, etc.

Stellar was engaged to lead the data work alongside the thl digital team responsible for building the new system. The thl business departments were responsible for defining and prioritising operational and departmental reporting.

Services that Stellar provided were:

• Leading the reporting consolidation, migration, and data quality project streams
• Leading the data warehouse conversion, from one system to another.
• Conversion of operational and analytic reports for revenue, customer services, incident and complaints and fleet utilisation

The solution

Report Consolidation

Stellar undertook an analysis of all the existing reports and their associated data models to identify optimisations that could be applied, focussing on consolidating the number of reports and improving the user experience by redesigning the user interface.

Data Warehouse Conversion

The existing data warehouse was converted to integrate new data and implement the updated business rules from the new system.

As part of this process, optimisation and improvements were also added to ensure the data for operational reporting was refreshed in under 15 minutes providing near real-time updates for branch management.

Data Quality

An automated daily data quality process was implemented to reconcile the data between the old and new systems. This process ensured that the data in the reports were accurate as soon as the new system was available to users.

Operational Reporting

Several reports are used by branches on an hourly basis for booking reservations, fleet scheduling, incidents, financials, and marketing were converted to point to the new system. It was paramount to ensure the data in these reports were accurate and refreshed frequently during the day as they directly impacted customer experience.

Analytics Reporting

Internal departments use Microsoft Power BI dashboards and Microsoft Analysis Cubes to ensure the thl fleet is fully utilised, future revenue is accounted for, customer bookings and sales behaviour is known, and that customer service is perfected. Analytics reports were converted to use the data flowing from the new system to the data warehouse.

IFRS Reporting

The monthly general ledger (GL) process that calculates past, current and future revenue for IFRS reporting was also converted to use the data from the new system. Converting the GL process was complex, with a range of new business rules required.

Stellar worked with the Finance team and external auditors, PwC, to update and test the IFRS reports.

SME Advice

Stellar added best practice advice and documentation standards, as well as design and release processes, and system monitoring and performance reporting.

The business benefits

• Significantly reduced effort for thl to manage reporting and analysis.
• Insights were available on the same day the new system went live.
• Automated data quality processes ensure high data accuracy in reports.