IFS faced high costs and complexity from a fragmented data architecture with multiple reporting tools and overlapping services.
The company unified analytics and operations with Microsoft Fabric and the Cloud Acceleration Factory program, streamlining data management and reporting.
IFS increased data access from 20% to more than 85%, cut costs, and accelerated insights, empowering faster, smarter business decisions.
Increased data refresh by 10x
IFS stands out as a leading provider of enterprise software solutions not just by reputation, but through a robust product portfolio. The company’s offerings span end-to-end data and analytics, ERP, asset management, and service management solutions. IFS serves thousands of clients across industries, from manufacturing and aerospace to energy and utilities. It consistently delivers technology that empowers organizations to optimize complex operations and adapt in real time. As data volumes and business complexity continue to surge, IFS has invested in modernizing its own infrastructure and adopting advanced analytics platforms. In this way, it can continue to deliver reliable, scalable solutions that meet evolving client needs.
IFS internal platform as a service (PaaS)–based analytics architecture had become a significant obstacle to enabling faster development of analytics solutions. It also prevented business users from gaining self-service access to data. The environment was also costly to maintain, lacked unified data visibility, and created bottlenecks that slowed the development of new use cases. With multiple overlapping reporting tools and fragmented data management, only the IT department could address the majority of analytics needs. As a result, insights to business users were delayed and innovation stalled. These inefficiencies not only increased operational costs but also limited IFS’s ability to respond quickly to changing business requirements. Examples include real-time reporting, agile data integration, and scalable analytics to support growth and customer demands.
To overcome these challenges, IFS set out to unify its data estate and streamline its analytics environment. The goal was to establish a single, scalable platform that would enable seamless data sharing, support advanced AI-driven insights, and ensure robust data security. Previously, teams across the organization struggled to access up-to-date sales, operational, and customer data. They found it difficult to track performance, forecast demand, or identify new business opportunities. Decision-makers often lacked real-time visibility into key metrics and trends, relying on IT-generated reports that were frequently delayed or out-of-date. By consolidating disparate systems and optimizing for both hybrid and multicloud environments, IFS aimed to deliver faster, self-service access to analytics. This would enable business users to make timely, data-driven decisions on everything from resource allocation and supply chain management to customer engagement and strategic planning.
Recognizing that incremental fixes would not resolve its fragmented analytics environment, IFS chose Microsoft Fabric as the foundation for its next-generation data platform. The unified, enterprise-ready analytics capabilities in Fabric promised to simplify IFS’s sprawling architecture, centralize data management, and facilitate seamless collaboration across the business. The decision came after a thorough evaluation of cost, scalability, and the operational benefits of a SaaS solution.
“With Microsoft Fabric, we now have a unified platform that brings all these layers together, streamlining our workflows and significantly accelerating our development process. Having everything in one place has eliminated integration bottlenecks and made it much easier to deliver insights quickly and efficiently.”
Ligy Terrance, Director, Data Analytics and Integration, IFS
“The primary challenge we faced was the slow pace of development caused by managing separate extract, transform, load (ETL) processes and reporting environments,” says Ligy Terrance, Director of Data Analytics and Integration at IFS. “With Microsoft Fabric, we now have a unified platform that brings all these layers together, streamlining our workflows and significantly accelerating our development process. Having everything in one place has eliminated integration bottlenecks and made it much easier to deliver insights quickly and efficiently.”
To help ensure a smooth and more secure transition, IFS enrolled in the Microsoft Cloud Accelerate Factory program—twice in 18 months—applying expert guidance and proven methodologies to migrate its systems efficiently and minimize disruption.
Although IFS's existing infrastructure was complex, Fabric made it easy to migrate through a phased approach. IFS transitioned 75% of its analytics workloads from a patchwork of Azure SQL Database, Azure Data Factory pipelines, and SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) packages onto the Fabric platform. The consolidation eliminated redundant services and points of failure, streamlining reporting and analytics delivery. The unified services in Fabric—spanning data engineering, data science, real-time intelligence, and business intelligence—replaced the previous maze of overlapping tools. IFS consequently gained a single, cohesive environment for all data activities that increased efficiency. For example, the finance team at IFS experienced a dramatic improvement in their data refresh times. A job that previously took 20 hours to refresh now takes only 2 hours, enabling near real-time data access instead of batch updates. This leap in efficiency was achieved by applying Spark within Fabric. The team is on track to reduce the time again by 50%.
The migration also addressed longstanding security and compliance challenges by centralizing governance and access control. Built-in compliance features in Fabric helped ensure sensitive data remained protected and regulatory requirements were consistently met.
“By moving to a single platform and collaborating with Microsoft, we aligned with their adoption framework. This simplified our tech stack and ensured our teams accessed tailored training resources. It accelerated onboarding, reduced complexity, and gave us confidence that our people had the skills to drive innovation and deliver business value.”
Iaian Sherwell, Global Head of AI Operations, IFS
Iaian Sherwell, Global Head of AI Operations at IFS, says, “By moving to a single platform and collaborating with Microsoft, we aligned with their adoption framework. This simplified our tech stack and ensured our teams accessed tailored training resources. It accelerated onboarding, reduced complexity, and gave us confidence that our people had the skills to drive innovation and deliver business value.”
Key features of Fabric played a pivotal role in managing complexity and unlocking new value for IFS. The OneLake unified data lake simplified data storage and access. It supported both structured and unstructured data from multiple sources, including hybrid and multicloud environments. By using the shortcut capability in OneLake, IFS was able to create symbolic links to data across its ecosystem without physically moving or copying files. By doing so, it streamlined the architecture and reduced maintenance overhead. With Direct Lake mode, IFS could analyze data in place, eliminating the need for time-consuming export and import steps. The storage mode also provided near real-time access to critical business information. For example, business users who previously waited for periodic batch updates could now generate timely reports and analytics directly from the latest data. This approach significantly accelerated insight generation, reduced latency, and improved operational efficiency. It also empowered teams across IFS to make faster, data-driven decisions.
The software as a service (SaaS) model of Fabric meant that updates, optimizations, and security patches were handled automatically. As a result, operational overhead was reduced and IT teams could focus on innovation rather than maintenance. This also made it easy to scale analytics across departments and regions, supporting IFS’s global expansion and new use case development.
The unified platform transformed collaboration between developers and users. Instead of working in silos or relying on manual data transfers, teams could share datasets and insights in real time, using a single source of truth. Developers benefited from streamlined data engineering and integration tools. Business users accessed actionable insights through familiar Power BI interfaces, now seamlessly incorporated within Fabric. This eliminated the friction of multiple reporting solutions and supported faster, more responsive decision-making across the organization.
The advanced analytics and AI capabilities in Fabric further empowered IFS to anticipate disruptions and optimize operations. By centralizing all data sources, IFS improved forecasting accuracy, enabling teams to predict inventory needs, manage supply chains, and ensure sustainable access to the right products at the right time. Real-time analytics and AI-driven insights supported data-backed channel strategies, helping IFS optimize margins and maximize profitability. The platform’s scalability allowed IFS to quickly onboard new users, extend analytics to new business units, and experiment with AI-driven use cases without extensive pre-work or infrastructure changes.
Security and compliance remained paramount throughout the migration and ongoing operations. The centralized governance of Fabric aided IFS to enforce consistent data access, retention, and auditing policies. Automated monitoring and advanced threat detection provided real-time visibility into the security posture of the entire data estate. This proactive approach reduced the risk of data breaches or regulatory lapses. It also ensured that IFS could meet the strict requirements of both North American and European markets.
The results of IFS’s migration to Fabric have been both immediate and transformative. By consolidating multiple Azure PaaS services into a single, unified Fabric environment, IFS increased its analytics capacity. It eliminated the expense and complexity of maintaining disparate systems like SSIS, Azure Data Factory, Azure Analysis Services, and Azure SQL Database. With all analytical workloads moving into Fabric, the company is able to sunset previous services, streamline operations, and maximize the value of its cloud investment.
“With Fabric, our access to critical data has increased dramatically. Where our teams once worked with just 20% of the information they needed, they now have 85% to 90% at their fingertips. This leap has fundamentally changed how we operate, enabling faster, more informed decisions and driving real business transformation.”
Iaian Sherwell, Global Head of AI Operations, IFS
Increased data product by 275%
The move to Fabric also brought a significant change in analytics capability and efficiency. Previously, teams were limited by periodic, time-consuming data refreshes and fragmented access to information. With Direct Lake mode in Fabric, IFS now delivers near real-time analytics to business teams, empowering faster, data-driven decisions across the organization. Sherwell explains, “With Fabric, our access to critical data has increased dramatically. Where our teams once worked with just 20% of the information they needed, they now have 85% to 90% at their fingertips. This leap has fundamentally changed how we operate, enabling faster, more informed decisions and driving real business transformation.”
Customer-facing teams have also benefited. Terrance notes, “Now, with the unified data and analytics platform, the finance, sales, R&D, and consulting teams at IFS all follow the same standardized process for generating reports and analyzing business metrics.” With simplified reporting tools and better access to insights, IFS has been able to bring customer satisfaction metrics into sharper focus, embedding them into daily operations and strategic planning.
But the most compelling outcome may be how the new architecture positions IFS for the future. With a unified platform in place, the company is now building a common data model and enriching it with metadata to support AI-driven analytics. It has already increased its data products by 275%.
“We’re not just building for today; we’re building for what’s next. By structuring our data and adding the right metadata in Microsoft Fabric, we’re preparing for a future fueled by Microsoft Copilot agents that will generate reports, surface insights, and recommend actions automatically. That’s the agility and intelligence we’re aiming for with Microsoft tools,” concludes Sherwell.
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