Microsoft SQL Server
Customer Solution Case Study
Off-Road Vehicle Manufacturer Is Creating a
Self-Serve BI System to Boost Product Quality
Customer: Polaris Industries
Website: www.polarisindustries.com
Customer Size: 3,600 employees
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Manufacturing—Automotive
and industrial
Partner: GNet Group
Partner Website: www.gnetgroup.com
Customer Profile
Polaris Industries is world-renowned for
its off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, and
motorcycles. Headquartered in Medina,
Minnesota, Polaris sells through a
network of more than 1,600 dealers.
Solution Spotlight
 Gives engineers and analysts selfservice BI, using the Power View
feature of SQL Server 2012.
 Offers faster access to data for
knowledge workers who will no longer
have to ask IT to create new reports.
 Enhances quality for the customer as
engineers and other workers can
monitor the company’s Warranty
Reporting data more closely.
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“We set our users loose using SQL Server 2012 Power
View against the PowerPivot data sources and were
impressed by the reports they generated. Power View
and PowerPivot are great analytical tools, and they
promote easy self-service BI.”
Michael Wissink, Business Intelligence Developer, Polaris Industries
Polaris Industries, a pioneer in the snowmobile industry, is one
of the world’s largest off-road vehicle manufacturers. To help it
achieve its commitment to quality, Polaris required an easier
system to monitor warranty claims and other data to spot and
resolve quality issues swiftly. It is deploying a new warranty
reporting system using the Power View feature of Microsoft SQL
Server 2012 to gain self-service business intelligence.
Business Needs
One of the world’s leading manufacturers
of all-terrain vehicles, Polaris Industries
generated revenue of U.S.$2.7 billion in
2011. The company, which has 3,600
employees and more than 1,600 dealers, is
a leader in the snowmobile industry, and
its Victory motorcycle division, established
in 1998, builds the first all-new, Americanmade motorcycle in nearly 60 years.
The company’s motto, which is etched in
steel at the entrance of all of the
company’s locations, reads: “Understand
the riding experience. Live the riding
experience. Work to make it better.”
As part of its efforts to live by that motto,
the company has long monitored
information from its dealer warranty claims
and manufacturing operations to detect
and swiftly resolve issues that could affect
product quality.
Initially the data was compiled by IT
personnel running queries against
databases and copying results into
Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software to
create weekly reports. Data was collected
from a number of sources including the
company’s enterprise resource planning
(ERP) data hosted on an IBM AS/400
system, and its customer relationship
management (CRM) solution that was
created using Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
In 2010, Polaris sought to further automate
its monitoring process and make it easier to
work with by creating what it calls its
Warranty Reporting system. Warranty
Reporting was implemented using a
QlikView business intelligence (BI) and
reporting application, which drew most of
its information from a SQL Server 2000
database containing warranty data.
The Warranty Reporting system, which
Polaris considers to be mission-critical,
proved so popular that internal users
sought new ways to use it. “The teams that
used our Warranty Reporting system the
most came up with a list of requested
enhancements,” says Shirley Zierke, Director
of Information Technology at Polaris. “They
wanted to bring in data from additional
sources and add features that were either
not possible or not easy to implement with
QlikView. We needed a solution that would
make it easier to pull all of this information
together.”
Solution
Working with GNet Group, Polaris began
searching for the best platform for its next
iteration of the Warranty Reporting system.
GNet Group, which was a 2011 Microsoft BI
Partner of the Year finalist, helped Polaris
conduct a proof-of-concept project testing
SQL Server 2012 Enterprise data
management software as a BI platform.
The proof of concept included using the
Power View feature of SQL Server 2012
Reporting Services. Power View is a selfservice BI reporting tool that facilitates ad
hoc data queries. Also included in the proof
of concept was Microsoft SQL Server
PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel, which can
be used to create cube-like analytics
against a database.
Based on the success of the proof-ofconcept demonstration, Polaris has begun
planning for a new Warranty Reporting
solution that will replace QlikView with
Microsoft BI technology. The new solution
will take advantage of Power View and
PowerPivot for Excel to provide a selfservice BI experience that can be used
throughout the company.
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 will be
used to store and share data drawn from
the Warranty Reporting system. Prior to
launching the new system, Polaris will
create an operational data store using SQL
Server 2012 Enterprise. Polaris plans to
host its solution using HP ProLiant BL460
G7 server computers.
The company also plans to upgrade its
SQL Server 2000 database to SQL Server
2012 Enterprise, running on the Windows
Server 2008 R2 operating system later in
the year
Benefits
By taking advantage of SQL Server 2012 BI
technology, Polaris Industries will be
providing knowledge workers with selfservice BI and faster access to data, and, as
a result, product quality will be enhanced.
Gains Self-Service BI
Polaris values the simple user experience
that Power View and PowerPivot provide.
“We chose SQL Server 2012 and Power
View because of the self-service ease of
use,” Zierke says. “We want to give our
people a self-service solution because they
are the ones who are working with the
information every day.”
Zierke’s group was impressed by what the
company’s analysts were able to do when
given a look at the new Microsoft BI
Software and Services
Provides Faster Access to Data
Users will gain faster access to the data
they need because of the ease with which
they will be able to perform their own
analytics and create their own reports.
“We don’t want IT to be the bottleneck
when analysts and engineers seek
information,” Zierke says. “People
shouldn’t have to wait for IT to create a
new report. We want them to be able to
slice and dice the data and create reports
however and whenever they need.”
Enhances Product Quality
The new Warranty Reporting solution will
help Polaris in its commitment to quality.
“This system we built using SQL Server
2012 will help us react more quickly to
address a newly identified problem in the
field,” says Pat McArdle, Service Engineer
at Polaris. “It also helps us to resolve the
issue for the next vehicles we build, so
they are always getting better.”
Sameer Gurav, Quality Engineer at Polaris,
adds: “Ideally our Warranty Reporting
system will be used by everyone in
engineering. We want everyone to be able
to benefit from this source of information.”
− Microsoft SQL Server PowerPivot for
Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
Microsoft Excel
− Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
− Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
Hardware
− Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Enterprise  HP ProLiant BL460 G7 server computers
 Technologies
− Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Reporting Partner
Services
 GNet Group

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS
SUMMARY.
Document published May 2012
technology. “We set our users loose using
SQL Server 2012 Power View against the
PowerPivot data sources and were
impressed by the reports they generated,”
says Michael Wissink, Business Intelligence
Developer at Polaris Industries. “Power
View and PowerPivot are great analytical
tools, and they promote easy self-service
BI.”