GAIL's fast-expanding bakery business now has a sharper competitive edge, thanks to powerful analytics that provide managers with timely, actionable insights from across the enterprise.

A UK-wide solution for a fresh bakery chain.

At a glance

Bespoke Business Platform

Bespoke Business Analytics Platform provides a competitive advantage

Automated Reporting

Streamlined and automated reporting system combines 12 data sources

Full activity view

Managers get a joined-up view of sales, delivery, shop and web activity

Interactive dashboards

Spreadsheets replaced by interactive dashboards – perfect for making key decisions

Customer Service Data Available

Third-party retailer data and customer service ticket data also available

"We wanted a robust platform that would allow us to consolidate our core data sources in a single place, as well as automated pipelines to verify and assure the quality – and therefore our users’ trust – in the data."

Neal M., Group Head of Business Intelligence and Insights, GAIL's

About GAIL's

Bread Ltd is a holding company which brings together the first-class production standards of London’s leading artisan bakery and wholesaler, The Bread Factory, and GAIL’s Bakery whose popular branded products are sold in supermarkets the length and breadth of the UK.

The Challenge

With over 80 bakeries and thousands of employees, the business was expanding rapidly. Managers wanted to measure performance, optimise operations and innovate ahead of competitors. They needed to move away from a world of spreadsheets, manual processes for reports from multiple systems, and departmental silos. Now was the time to introduce a consolidated, streamlined and automated reporting capability – with timely insights.

The Solution

Bread Ltd was predominantly a Microsoft house for its systems. To maximise ROI, it wanted the new platform to run on the Azure cloud infrastructure, connecting to PowerBI – the business’s reporting tool. Following a proof-of-concept, One Beyond built a platform that consolidates all data sources across The Bread Factory and GAIL’s Bakery. Reporting is now fully automated and accessible via interactive dashboards.

A closer look at features and benefits

Scalable platform runs on secure Azure Synapse cloud infrastructure

Harnesses the latest Microsoft technologies

Connects Bread Ltd’s data lake, transformation and reporting layers to PowerBI reporting and toolsets

Data sources include production, labour rotas, ERP invoicing and proof-of-delivery notes, Google Analytics web interactions and point-of-sale data

Time is saved for employees, who can now focus on adding value by using innovative analytics

"This project has allowed us to build a really strong foundation that has already accelerated our journey to being a more data-enabled business, with the ability to create insights much more rapidly."