Transforming Pharma Industry with iLink’s Power BI Center of Excellence (CoE)

A globally recognized quick-service restaurant (QSR) brand with a broad presence across North America sought to enhance its real-time data capabilities to better serve its operational and marketing goals. Known for its innovation-driven approach and high-volume customer engagement, the brand needed a flexible and scalable architecture to improve data ingestion, reduce latency, and unlock insights faster across teams.

Industry

Restaurant

Company size

10K+ Employees

Headquarters

Illinois, U.S.A.

Client Overview

As part of a broader digital transformation strategy, the client was evaluating advanced real-time analytics technologies that could ingest, process, and deliver insights from multiple streaming data sources. The aim was to create a foundational framework that could serve various real-time data use cases across departments, from marketing to operations and supply chain analytics.

Challenges

Latency in Data Availability: The existing architecture delayed the availability of operational insights, hindering real-time decision-making.
Complex Data Pipelines: Data needed to be ingested from various sources such as AWS S3, Kinesis, and EventBridge and decoded through AWS Redshift logic.
Lack of Unified Platform: Without a centralized analytics platform, data remained siloed and underutilized.
Scaling Requirements: The growing volume of streaming data necessitated a modern, scalable solution that supported shift-left strategies for future enhancements.

Solution

To address these needs, iLink Digital designed and implemented a proof of concept (PoC) using Microsoft Fabric’s Real-Time Analytics (RTA) capabilities:

Streamlined Data Ingestion: Set up pipelines to ingest data from AWS S3 and decode existing AWS Redshift stored procedures into KQL databases.
Event-Driven Architecture: Implemented real-time streaming from EventBridge to Managed Kafka and from Kinesis to EventStream, leveraging Microsoft Fabric’s robust architecture.
KQL Database Integration: Enabled querying and analytics on real-time streams using KQL to provide instant data access.
Future-Ready Architecture: Positioned the solution for ongoing optimization with a shift-left approach for proactive latency reduction.

Business Outcome

Validated Real-Time Processing

Successfully demonstrated the capability of Microsoft Fabric to ingest and process streaming data with minimal latency.

Architectural Readiness

Delivered a scalable architecture that lays the groundwork for future data use cases across departments.

Operational Efficiency

Enhanced the ability to make faster, data-informed decisions by reducing data latency.

Exploration of New Use Cases

Opened opportunities to explore deeper integration across marketing, operations, and customer engagement platforms.

This engagement highlights iLink Digital’s ability to rapidly prototype and validate cutting-edge analytics solutions using Microsoft Fabric, positioning the client for scalable real-time intelligence across their enterprise.