Cacau Show revolutionizes information analysis with Power BI

If you enter any shopping center in Brazil, it is virtually certain that you will find a Cacau Show store. With more than 2,200 units distributed throughout all states, the company is the largest fine chocolate network in the world, serving more than 60 million consumers. To meet demand, the network hires approximately 1,500 employees in its industrial and administrative area, and more than 10,000 people across the franchise network.

A business with such scale and complex logistics (from raw material sourcing to distribution across the country) requires robust data management to supply the different areas of the company. This was a challenge that Cacau Show professionals had great difficulty solving. “Hosting, consolidating, and sharing this data was very complex,” explains the Technology Manager, Flaviano Dena.

Unproductive data management 

One of the problems faced by the company was the decentralization of information. The sectors required generation of different reports, which demanded too many hours of work from the technology team. “We had the same information, intended to say the same thing, but several different analyses – which wasn’t truly productive,” says Felipe Coyado, Business Intelligence Coordinator at Cacau Show.

Cacau Show sought the support of SoftwareOne, which suggested the implementation of Power BI to optimize the company’s data management. The Microsoft tool provided the efficiency and convenience the network was looking for. “Power BI has really helped us unify everything in one place and distribute information to everyone,” said Coyado. “This eliminated the previous problem, where everyone had to hit their own number.”

Decentralized information in Power BI

Today, all metrics relevant to the company are focused on the platform, which offers the dynamism needed for the company’s different areas. “We work with shared goals amongst the departments: Supply Chain, Commercial, Marketing, etc.,” said Stefenson Soalheiro, Director of Supply Chain. “The main benefit is that we all see the same target. From the assistant to the president, everyone sees practically the same information.” 

And that's not an exaggeration. In different parts of the Cacau Show office and plants, there are Power BI dashboards that display data such as: daily and monthly billing, number of sales, distribution information, and many others. The various reports required for process management are just a few clicks away from the professionals involved.

But the easy access to information is not limited to company employees. Thousands of network franchisees can enjoy the tools’ efficiency. “With Microsoft technologies like Power BI Embedded, it was possible to reach the franchisee with the same vision the consultant has,” said Dena. “The consultant opens the computer screen with a Power BI indicator and the franchisee there in the store sees the same result. This makes dialogue, management, and decision-making much easier.”

The success of the implementation made other companies from different sectors of the economy follow the initiative. “The Cacau Show project was a great reference,” said Giacomo Ortolan, Regional Sales Director at SoftwareOne. “Many customers have come to the company to understand what they did, how they did it, and why it was so successful, with such an accuracy in numbers and the ability to measure, in real time, the return on investments and campaigns.”

“Today I cannot imagine our work without Power BI,” concluded Dena. “All our decisions, meetings, and campaigns are grounded in the results we see within the tool.”