About customer

Since 2020, Bank Center Credit, established in 1988 as one of the first commercial banks in Kazakhstan, has undergone a significant digital transformation. This journey has seen the bank evolve from a corporate institution reliant on manual application reviews to a versatile financial entity focused on digital solutions for retail, small, and medium-sized businesses. 

The newly developed digital platform now manages data for over 6 million retail customers and hundreds of thousands of companies. A key part of this transformation was the reengineering of the single data warehouse, which laid the foundation for real-time analytics using big data. This has enabled more effective decision-making across all levels of business management and the integration of artificial intelligence to enhance customer experience. As a result, CenterCredit Bank has consistently ranked among the top three organizations in the retail lending market for the past two years.

Rubina Lozovaya, CDO, Chief Retail Risk Officer, VP, Bank Center Credit, stated: 

"The value of collecting and converting big data for business is undeniable, but it necessitates aligning services for financial and management reporting with regulatory data encryption requirements. Additionally, CenterCredit Bank upholds stringent internal information security standards. 

The analytical platform, based on Microsoft Fabric, addresses the challenges of information accessibility while mitigating the risk of confidential data leaks. With the implementation of a unified reporting system, a single-entry point, and a role-based model, users at all levels can access necessary data promptly, in accordance with the approved Service Level Agreement (SLA). Furthermore, a module for monitoring the performance of Power BI dashboards has been developed to aid in forecasting and sales management." 

For Awara IT, this endeavor marks a significant milestone in its enduring partnership with the Bank Center Credit, following the successful implementation of M365 E3 and Teams. The proposed solution involves leveraging Microsoft Fabric, which integrates the capabilities of PowerBI Premium. 

Starting point

The company already had experience working with Power BI. However, as the company grew and more users and dashboards were added, the requirements for the analytical platform increased. They needed a solution that was productive, safe, and reliable. MS Fabric enabled us to scale the analytics platform and elevate business intelligence capabilities.

Key objectives

Bank Center Credit aimed to achieve short-term and long-term goals: 

1. Implementation of a secure and scalable corporate business intelligence tool for 3000+ users, facilitating both analytical functions and reporting, 
2. Additionally, laying the groundwork for future ML and AI applications and organizing data processing through OneLake technologies, Data Engineering, and Data Science tools are pivotal.

Challenges and solutions

Implementation  

At the previous stage we deployed solution, incorporating Microsoft 365 and Enterprise Mobility + Security, including Entra ID P1, Intune, Information Protection, and DLP (Data Loss Prevention), among others. More efficient interaction services allowed the bank to increase its competitiveness and speed up the reaction time to changes in market conditions.  

New project implementation: 3+ months. 

Technologies: Microsoft Fabric. 

The project involved several stages of load testing: 

1. Simulation Tests: These initial tests assessed the platform's functionality and performance under heavy loads. 
2. Load Testing with Real Users: This step replicated real-world scenarios to evaluate how the analytical platform handles high user traffic. 
3. User and Technical Specialist Training: Training sessions were conducted to teach users and technical staff how to administer the analytical platform, manage users, and analyze report usage. This included understanding which reports and analytics are frequently or infrequently used. 

The purpose of this testing was to determine the necessary license level (SKU) to ensure the platform operates efficiently and without issues. When planning costs, organizations need to understand the budget required for software or services. Knowing the appropriate license level is crucial for implementing the final solution and resource planning.  

The Microsoft Fabric platform is currently deployed: 

1. An analytical tool and an enterprise-level data management platform fortified with robust information security measures and scalability.
2. The collection of heterogeneous data from various sources, including other platforms (multicloud support), enabling real-time analytics. 

Results

Project results

Now, while the implementation has yet to generate revenue growth, its key positive impacts revolve around trust and cost savings:

•  the user-friendly service streamlines operations, reducing the need for developer staff, 
• while its automatic scaling during peak loads prevents unnecessary expenditure on redundant infrastructure (for example, 3,000 employees wanted to view the report at the same time). 

Next steps

In addition to enhancing data usability, the project's primary outcome lies in establishing a foundation for future advanced analytics.  

This project is particularly significant for Awara IT as it signifies our proficiency in implementing a new Microsoft solution with broad market potential. 

Over the past 12 months, Awara IT has undertaken several exciting projects worldwide, Including the construction of a solid consolidated corporate data management platform based on Microsoft Data Platform technologies and a PowerBI-based analytical system. 

Awara IT is a company with the Customer centric culture. We believe that Microsoft technologies can help Customers to be successful and efficient as any need or pain-point can be addressed with Microsoft platform. Business Applications is in the core of our business, still to believe that only comprehensive approach and expertise in the whole Microsoft technological stack can discover the full potential of Dynamics technological family. So, we are experts in Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, and Azure with MVPs on board. We work closely with Microsoft PDMs & cloud architects that really help us to adopt all opportunities the Microsoft offers to the Partner Ecosystem. Consuming a sandwich-like infrastructure where data is the basis, Azure, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform comes on top becomes not just theory but reality.   

Only this comprehensive approach allows us to take such challenges and meet our commitments with the Customers with high level of proficiency.