Microsoft SQL Server
Customer Solution Case Study
Distributor Chooses Microsoft BI over IBM,
Cuts Deployment Time and Saves $100,000
Customer: Building Material Distributors
Website: www.bmdusa.com
Customer Size: 250 employees
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Retail and distribution—
Lumber and construction wholesalers
Partner: Pivotstream
Partner Website: www.pivotstream.com
Customer Profile
Based in Galt, California, Building
Material Distributors is a specialized
wholesale distributor of building and
forest products. The employee-owned
company operates seven sites in the
United States.
Solution Spotlight
 Dramatically cuts implementation time
and saves more than U.S.$100,000 by
choosing Microsoft over IBM Cognos.
 Recoups 200 IT hours monthly and
boosts efficiency because staff can
create BI independently.
 Gives BMD an advantage over its
competitors because it has real-time
insight into the supply chain.
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“The Microsoft BI solution is perfect for us because we
could get it up and running in less than three months,
and it costs us about $100,000 less per year than IBM
Cognos.”
Mary Bailey, Senior Director of Corporate Development and Planning,
Building Material Distributors
Building Material Distributors (BMD) needed automated, realtime business intelligence (BI). In 2011, the company worked
with third-party Pivotstream to deploy a hosted Microsoft BI
solution. By doing so, BMD saved more than U.S.$100,000. It
also dramatically sped deployment, saved 200 IT hours monthly,
increased efficiency, and boosted competitive advantage.
Business Needs
Building Material Distributors (BMD)
supplies quality building products to
independent lumberyards, building
material dealers, window and door
specialty retailers, hardware retailers, and
home centers. To deliver excellent service
and competitive solutions, the company
uses ASW enterprise resource planning
(ERP) software to manage its supply chain.
The ASW ERP system generated hundreds
of static reports each day. These reports
lacked the details employees needed to
effectively manage processes. Mary Bailey,
Senior Director of Corporate Development
and Planning at BMD, explains, “We had
no way to easily compare budget and
forecast numbers with actual numbers, and
we could only see inventory balances at
the end of each month.” Employees had to
engage IT personnel to obtain custom
reports, which could take up to several
weeks to create. In addition, if too many
reports ran at the same time, or if a report
required analysis of more than 1 million
rows of data, the ASW system went
offline—sometimes crashing every system
in the company. As a result, employees
often had to wait a long time to get the
data needed to make key decisions.
The frustrating delay in insight impeded
efficiency because it could be weeks or
even months before a manager could see
an issue. In addition, static and custom
reports could include information from
only one product module—either finance
or operations. This meant that employees
often manually compared data from
multiple ASW reports with Microsoft Excel
2010 spreadsheet software. However,
because people used different calculations,
reports were often inconsistent.
BMD initially sought a new ERP solution
that could give its employees real-time BI
about ERP data in automated reports,
dashboards, and key performance indicators
(KPIs). The solution needed to be fast, easy
to use, and highly available. It also needed
to be flexible, to accommodate changes
such as adding new products.
Solution
BMD evaluated ERP solutions in 2009 and
2010 from SAP, IBM, Oracle, Activant,
WoodPro, and Sentry Software. In January
2011, BMD chose a solution based on a new
release of ASW ERP that included IBM
Cognos. However, before BMD purchased
the software, it learned about Microsoft SQL
Server PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel. BMD
tested it and decided to implement a
Microsoft BI solution instead. In addition,
BMD chose Microsoft partner Pivotstream
to host the new solution in its cloud. By
choosing Microsoft BI, BMD could avoid
upgrading its ERP system. Bailey adds,
“There would also be almost no learning
curve for employees to use PowerPivot for
Excel, and it would be very easy to
administer, especially compared to Cognos.”
In just one week, consultants from
Pivotstream worked with business and IT
personnel at BMD to design and implement
the initial solution. This included the
creation of a new data mart that runs on
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
data management software and the
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
operating system. The data mart includes
2.2 gigabytes of data from the ERP system.
The team configured Microsoft SQL Server
2008 R2 Integration Services to load the
data into tables with up to 85 million rows.
The team also spent about one hour setting
up a new portal based on Microsoft
SharePoint 2010. It provides centralized
access to BI, including hundreds of
standardized reports, 25 dashboards, and
more than 50 KPIs. The team created the
BI with SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting
Services, Microsoft SQL Server PowerPivot
for Microsoft SharePoint, and Excel 2010.
Commenting on the collaboration, Bailey
says, “Pivotstream is a fabulous company
to work with, and it has provided extensive
knowledge about PowerPivot.”
After testing the initial solution for about 3
months, BMD released it into production.
Twenty-five employees use a web browser
to access reports and modify them by
changing filters to view more or less detail.
In addition, four employees can use
PowerPivot for Excel to build custom
reports with any information in the data
mart.
Employees can also create reports and
dashboards independently. Bailey says, “By
implementing PowerPivot for Excel, the IT
department saves at least 200 hours a
month by not having to create reports.
Now they are free to work on key
initiatives such as the deployment of a new
CRM system that we will use to share
screenshots of reports and dashboards
with customers.”
Benefits
By implementing a self-service BI solution
based on SQL Server 2008 R2, PowerPivot
for SharePoint, and PowerPivot Excel, BMD
saves money, boosts efficiency, and
improves its competitive advantage.
Saves More Than $100,000
By choosing Microsoft over other vendors,
BMD saved time and money. “The
Microsoft BI solution is perfect for us
because we could get it up and running in
less than three months, and it costs us
about $100,000 less per year than IBM
Cognos,” Bailey says. “It would have taken
six months to install Cognos, and we
avoided a $250,000 upgrade of our ERP
system and about three months of
additional training which would have cost
thousands of dollars.”
Software and Services
Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
− Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
− Microsoft SharePoint 2010
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
Enterprise
 Microsoft Office
− Microsoft Excel 2010

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS
SUMMARY.
Document published June 2012
Increases Efficiency and Recoups 200 IT
Hours a Month
Today, reports are created in real time, are
consistent across groups, and can contain
data from all ASW modules. Bailey says,
“With the Microsoft BI solution, executives
and managers can compare detailed
information about sales against budgets,
so we can hold people accountable at a
level that we couldn’t before. Category
managers can also see detailed product
data, quickly pinpoint margin loss, and
adjust processes mid-period.” Employees
are more productive because they can
access BI at any time, and the new solution
provides faster, more reliable performance.
“With PowerPivot for Excel, we can process
millions of rows of data in seconds without
crashing systems,” says Bailey.
Improves Competitive Advantage
BMD is improving how it works with
suppliers and vendors. “Together,
PowerPivot, SQL Server, and SharePoint
create a transformative BI solution that is
changing how we operate as a company,”
says Bailey. “Microsoft BI puts us far ahead
of most other companies in our industry in
terms of how we analyze data and work
with customers—and we’re just starting to
tap into its potential.”

Technologies
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
Integration Services
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
Reporting Services
− Microsoft SQL Server PowerPivot for
Microsoft Excel
− Microsoft SQL Server PowerPivot for
Microsoft SharePoint