Krifa reaches new heights with a modern Data Warehouse

Case: Krifa

With a modern Data Warehouse based on the latest technology, Krifa can now make better decisions based on a common ground.

An outdated BI-system

Business intelligence as a tool was not new in Krifa. For more than 10 years another reporting tool was used. The reports on this platform were, in fact, good enough. However, the platform was still a source of frustration throughout the organization. It was too complicated to update, create new reports, and gather data from several sources. Krifa wanted far more flexibility and automation than the current solution could offer.

New, up-to-data Data Warehouse

Krifa had an outdated Data Warehouse systemthat only contained a portion of the data they wanted to report on. Therefore, other tools such as Excel were used to retrieve and process data. It made it difficult for them to get an overview of their data.

Krifa wanted to do much more with their data. This was data such as statistics on members, time spend on cases, absences, financial data, and member data which they wanted to compile for various statistical purposes. Meetings have been held to ensure the data collected complies with GDPR law.

Krifa had previously worked together with Kapacity in another case. Therefore, they chose Kapacity to help them in their desire for a better BI system.

A Microsoft solution has been established in Azure, consisting of several services to build three environments: a development environment, test environment, and production environment, shown on the illustration on the right. The solution is based on a framework that Kapacity have developed with a focus on a common working method – and quality, and hence faster development time. It is built as a PaaS (Platform as a Service) solution in Azure.

The solution exhibits a common set of dimension tables across the individual business areas, enabling Krifa’s business users to make queries across areas.

New opportunities with Machine Learning

Data from Krifa’s new Data Warehouse is used to enrich a Customer Churn Prediction – an analysis based on Machine Learning. Together with Kapacity, a complex calculation model has been developed to help predict which members are most likely to leave Krifa. In this way, their new Data Warehouse helps create additional insight into each member. The solution will be launched in mid-March.

Customer Churn

Technology such as Machine Learning – e.g. based on Microsoft and open source technologies – enables the identification of potential churners. The technology, which is becoming more and more accessible, can quickly and with great statistical certainty tell you which parts of your customer group are at risk of leaving you – it provides you with your very own crystal ball.

Saves a considerable amount of time

The new solution thus creates more flexibility and a common data basis, which helps to free up time with the employees at Krifa. Below are some specific examples where they save time due to the solution (the reduced time consumption is an estimate from Krifa).

Economy Reports

With Krifa’s new BI solution, controllers do not have to prepare a quarterly spreadsheet on a follow-up of budgets across the individual departments, which approx. took 16 days a year, which the controllers can now spend on something more value-adding for the organization. Today, management can retrieve the numbers daily when they need it.

Sales report

Previously, data had to be extracted from their older BI system, after which a lot of time often was spent on converting data into an Excel report. Similarly, a longer commentary of data was previously followed in a separate Word document. Today, Krifa saves 1-2 days a month depending on whether to comment.

Constructive cooperation

There has been mutual professional cooperation between Krifa and Kapacity.

”Kapacity are a professional supplier who will go a long way to help Krifa achieve their goals through constructive collaboration and a dialogue-based approach. Kapacity is happy to challenge Krifa if their wishes are not possible to meet within a reasonable financial and functional framework. The collaboration is not over, but minimized as Krifa’s own employees gain the required knowledge,” says Per Balsløw Østergaard.

About Krifa

Krifa offers assistance and inspiration to all their customers throughout their working lives. Krifa wants to create good working conditions for people and influence workplaces and society towards a better work-life. With its 190,000 members, Krifa is today the fourth largest trade union movement in Denmark.

Krifa was founded in Randers in 1899. In 2012, they moved to Krifa Aarhus, which houses the Executive Board and a number of central functional areas such as the a-box secretariat, legal department, finance, sales, and communications.