The Co-op Leverages Azure Synapse Analytics and Power Bi to Build a Stronger Community — Microsoft

This article appeared on Microsoft.com

As one of the world’s largest cooperatives in the world, The Co-op needed a modern, long-term reporting tool to centralize and better utilize its massive amounts of data. With a focus on standardization and scalability, the organization had a strategic vision of migrating their reporting capabilities to the cloud so that users could access data and reporting all in the same place. Microsoft Power BI and Azure Synapse Analytics proved to be the right solution, empowering co-op member-owners with accessible company-wide data to make better decisions about how to improve the cooperative shopping experience and build the overall community.

At the heart of every co-operative business is a community committed to shared values and business goals to grow and enhance the co-operative experience. For the UK-based The Co-op Group—one of the largest co-operatives in the world—this means collecting and reporting massive amounts of data.

The Co-op Group is a multi-faceted organization offering an array of retail and service offerings. It is one of the UK’s largest food retailers, one of the UK’s leading funeral service providers, a major general insurer, and a provider of legal services. It has more than four million members worldwide. Because The Co-op is owned by its members, it is critical for the organization to measure how active members are in the community, how often they shop, and even their purchasing trends. This data helps The Co-op develop new ways to increase member engagement and participation in co-op operations and events.

To collect and record member metrics and other key data, The Co-op relied on a number of different reporting tools, each with different reporting functions.

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