Data analysis with the Azure platform
A global marketing and communications company is modernizing its data analysis with an Azure-supported platform. The introduction of Power BI has replaced manual processes and enabled interactive, self-service reporting. Within just a few months, the Samurai data platform was created, supported by Sensei and Ronin. Today, the ecosystem comprises nearly 23,000 reports and continues to grow, providing an expanding user base with high-quality analytics.
Modernizing data with an Azure-enabled analytics platform
The organization is a leading global marketing and advertising company focused on strategic brand partnerships that drive meaningful progress and business growth. With more than 45,000 employees and approximately 11,000 clients across 143 markets, it delivers innovative media campaigns and customized, data-driven strategies tailored to diverse customer needs.
The starting point: manual, fragmented data usage
Originally, most data usage within the company came from finance, HR, and sales. Users extracted raw data, moved it into Microsoft Excel, and relied heavily on formulas and pivot tables to produce insights. This process was manual, repetitive, and lacked automation, collaboration, or a single source of truth. Reporting was slow and outdated, making it difficult to scale analytics across the organization. To improve decision-making and efficiency, the company decided to invest in a modern, scalable analytics platform.
Discovering Power BI and introducing it across the organization
In 2014, a future Director of Business Intelligence discovered an early version of Power BI. After watching tutorials and attending self-service BI training, he quickly realized the tool’s potential.
After showcasing Power BI to colleagues and leadership, the response was overwhelmingly positive—especially the ability to explore data interactively in ways they had never experienced before.
“With Power BI, you can see your data visually in a way you’ve never seen before—spotting anomalies and outliers. It begins to tell you a story.”
With strong executive support, the company invested in expanding its reporting capabilities and building a modern data warehouse. This marked the beginning of a more advanced analytics initiative designed to empower better decision-making across the business.
Building the Samurai platform
Within four to six months, the BI team established the foundation for Samurai—the organization’s central data analytics and insights platform. It is powered by:
- Sensei – the modern cloud-based data warehouse
- Ronin – integrated business applications that feed the platform
Together, these components have transformed reporting and data-driven decision-making across the company.
Expanding analytics and insights to more users
Today, the organization maintains nearly 23,000 reports, combining self-service dashboards with BI-created content. The BI team has introduced weekly think tanks—informal open forums for sharing Power BI insights and addressing challenges.
Additionally, quarterly training sessions have grown from 15 participants to nearly 50, demonstrating increased engagement and adoption across departments.
The Samurai logo has become a trusted quality marker: users know that any report bearing it is based on high-quality data and can be relied upon for critical decisions.
Looking ahead: scaling the ecosystem
The organization is continuing to expand the Samurai platform and onboard more users. Key priorities include developing a unified data model and scaling Sensei across datasets to ensure consistent and reliable data lineage.
With these advancements underway, the company is excited about the future of reporting and committed to making high-quality analytics accessible to even more people.