Microsoft enters into alliance with MAF Retail

DUBAI: Microsot announced that Majid Al Futaim (MAF) Retail – operator of the Carrefour retail brand across 16 countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia – has transformed its financial planning and analysis (FP&A) capabilities through the power of Microsot Azure Data Plaform.

Majid Al Futaim Retail’s finance team leveraged Azure Analytics Plaform to fully automate financial and operational reporting and create a single source of truth for decision-makers.

Majid Al Futaim Retail faced the significant challenge of data silos. Waiting periods for reports were long, as data had to be manually extracted and modified using Excel. Reporting needs of the organization were subsequently skewed depending upon which function had requested information.

Through Azure Synapse and Powerbi, Majid Al Futaim Retail was able to fully automate its financial and operational reporting, eliminating human intervention. The transition enabled faster, deeper insights for stakeholders. While creating a unified view of the business for all division leaders, Majid Al Futaim Retail’s automation of Excel reporting has saved a calculated annual minimum of 6,530 labour-hours. The company now intends to incorporate Microsot Azure Machine Learning into its technology mix, to drive AI use cases within its finance function.

By increasing efficiencies in finance, Majid Al Futaim Retail was able to significantly accelerate its digital transformation journey. Additionally, the organisation’s new information ecosystem allows its commercial team to gain insights in seconds, through a few clicks, from more than 35 million records of daily data.