Postal Company Delivers Self-Service BI and Increases Its Competitiveness and Efficiency

Microsoft SQL Server Customer Solution Case Study

“With our new BI solution based on the SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse, we are bringing technological innovation to the worldwide postal market by delivering a service that no one else is offering.” Eduardo Nolano, Software Development Manager, TNT Post Italia TNT Post Italia needed to enhance and accelerate customers’ and employees’ insight into envelope deliveries. To address this challenge, TNT Post worked with partner SolidQ to deploy a data warehouse and BI solution with the Microsoft platform. By doing so, it became the first Italian postal company to offer clients self-service BI, which has helped TNT Post to boost its competitiveness, efficiency, and agility.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published January 2012 Business Needs also wanted to be the first Italian In October 2011, more than 10,000 Founded in 1998, TNT Post Italia uses postal company to give clients self- users, including customers and the Microsoft platform to process and service BI. employees, began to use the new track more than 2 million envelopes portal and BI tool. every day. The company also prints and Solution delivers mass mailings such as invoices TNT Post engaged Microsoft partner Benefits and account statements for companies SolidQ to help design a new solution. By implementing a new BI solution and government agencies. To facilitate TNT Post had worked successfully with based on the SQL Server Fast Track growth—especially in business-to- SolidQ on previous IT projects. In Data Warehouse, TNT Post has sped business offerings—TNT Post strives to addition, Nolano says, “We knew that efficiency, increased innovation, and deliver exceptional services. we wanted to implement a solution boosted agility. from Microsoft because it is a By 2010, rapid expansion had slowed reputable company that offers great Speeds Efficiency and Insight data insight and customer response business software. Our choice was also Rather than engaging IT personnel or times. When clients contacted TNT Post based on the quality of people that spending days analyzing data, with issues such as the delivery status of would work with us to address our employees can now access in-depth BI specific envelopes, IT personnel had to challenges.” in just seconds from dashboards or manually query a production system reports saved as Microsoft Excel files. that contained 1 terabyte of information TNT Post decided to deploy a BI Clients can also access dashboards and about more than 1 billion customer solution based on the Microsoft SQL reports to gain near-real-time insight transactions in a table with about 1 Server Fast Track Data Warehouse. It into deliveries. “Since we have billion rows. Because the system was includes reference architectures launched our new BI solution on the designed to handle smaller data engineered by Microsoft that speed SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse, volumes, extracting the details needed implementation, minimize costs, and we have significantly sped system to answer questions could take more achieve fast performance. After query times, and there is no longer a than 10 minutes. reviewing configuration options, lag time between a customer’s request SolidQ engineers deployed a data and the answer,” says Andrea Delfini, Employees in the finance and marketing warehouse that runs on SQL Server Marketing Representative at TNT Post departments also wanted faster access 2008 Enterprise data management Italia. “Employees and customers can to information to obtain more software, the Windows Server 2008 get the answers they need from the meaningful business intelligence (BI). Enterprise operating system, an HP portal.” Commenting on the solution’s With the previous solution, employees ProLiant BL460c G7 server computer, speed, Nolano says, “People can consulted standardized reports and and an EMC CLARiiON CX4 model 240 search more than 1 billion database queried the database for insight. People storage area network. rows in our Fast Track Data Warehouse also manually exported reports and in less than 10 seconds.” entered data into Microsoft Excel To extract data from the production spreadsheet software for further system and present it to users in Delivers Unique Self-Service analysis. “With so much information, it dashboards and reports, engineers Capability wasn’t possible for users to easily used Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Today, in just seconds, clients can view explore records to see how many Integration Services and SQL Server data about every one of their envelopes we had sent that day, how 2008 Reporting Services. To optimize envelopes delivered over the past six many were not deliverable, or how performance and control data growth, months. Employees can also access many new orders were placed,” says they set up the warehouse so that it insightful BI about the more than 300 Eduardo Nolano, Software Development only contains transaction data from million deliveries made during that Manager at TNT Post Italia. “It could the previous six months. Data is then time frame. Delfini says, “With our new take days to get the business compressed and partitioned with BI solution based on the SQL Server intelligence that people sought.” features in SQL Server 2008. In Fast Track Data Warehouse, we are addition, a portal developed with the once again bringing technological In January 2011, TNT Post decided to Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 gives innovation to the worldwide postal implement a new BI solution that could people global access to the solution. market by delivering a service that no improve insight and facilitate growth. It one else is offering.” Nolano adds, “We

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published January 2012 were the first to introduce certified mail launch new services, support more self-service solution with the SQL to Italy four years ago. Now, with the clients, and maintain reliable service Server Fast Track Data Warehouse, we Microsoft BI platform, we are the first despite expansion. For example, can be more flexible in meeting our Italian postal company to introduce a because the new warehouse is customers’ needs and more consistent self-service BI tool, and so we can structured efficiently and uses in delivering fast performance even attract more clients because we offer capabilities such as data compression, with rapid growth,” says Nolano. “As a better and faster insight into deliveries it is about the same size as the result, we can better defend our than competitors.” production database was in 2010— leading position as new competitors approximately 1 terabyte—and yet it enter the market.” Increases Agility to Facilitate Growth contains information about twice as TNT Post now has the scalable, high- many transactions (more than 2 performance infrastructure it needs to billion). “By deploying an innovative

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published January 2012