From unreadable ERP to weekly reporting in 6 weeks
A services SME had its data locked in an ERP with no way to read it. Azymuth built a custom visualization platform that turned monthly reporting into weekly operations management.
Context
A ten-person services SME (including account managers) used an ERP to handle day-to-day operations: invoicing, case tracking, accounting data.
The director had the data. But not the insight.
Every month-end, performance tracking relied on manual exports, laborious Excel consolidations, and approximate dashboards. The question "how are my account managers doing this week?" had no quick answer.
The Problem
The ERP was doing its job: storing and structuring data. But it was never designed to answer the director's operational questions:
- Who is performing well, who is falling behind?
- What is the real outstanding balance per account manager?
- Which cases are slowing down activity?
- What is the company's financial health right now?
Getting answers to these questions consumed several hours per month. The raw data existed but remained unusable without manual processing.
What Azymuth Built
1. ERP Export Analysis
Before writing a single line of code, the Azymuth team studied the available export files: table structure, data consistency, exploitable indicators, recurring duplicates and inconsistencies.
This phase took one week. It mapped exactly what was reliable, and what was not.
2. Scoping with the Director
Azymuth ran two working sessions with the director to understand the real questions, not just the data.
What emerged:
- A summary view of account managers (volume handled, outstanding balance, alerts)
- Invoicing and collections tracking
- A high-level accounting dashboard
- Automatic alerts on significant variances
3. Building the Platform
Starting from ERP exports, Azymuth developed a lightweight processing pipeline and a dedicated web interface:
- Automated ingestion of weekly exports
- Business indicator calculation defined during scoping
- Interactive dashboards accessible from any browser
- Configurable alerts on thresholds set by the director
No ERP change. No migration. Existing data was the foundation.
4. Deployment and Training
By week 6, the platform was in production. The director was trained in half a day. The Azymuth team remained available for two additional weeks for post-launch adjustments.
Results Measured at 3 Months
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Reporting frequency | Monthly | Weekly |
| Reporting time | ~4h/month | ~45 min/month |
| Excel reprocessing | 3h/week | 0 |
| Response time to a performance question | Several hours | Under 5 minutes |
The director now has a near-real-time view of account manager performance and the company's financial health - without changing tools, without hiring, without a long IT project.
What This Project Demonstrates
This case is representative of a common SME situation: the data is there, but reading it requires too much effort to do regularly.
The value is not in collecting new data. It is in the ability to use what already exists.
"We had the information. We didn't have visibility. Now I open my dashboard Monday morning in 5 minutes and I know exactly where we stand." Director, Services SME
Your business has data in its tools. The real question is: does it actually help you run it?