How Fabric Transformed Franchisee Analytics for a Leading Quick-Service Restaurant Chain in Just 4 Weeks

A major quick-service restaurant chain partnered with Lantern to deliver a promised analytics portal for franchisees in just four weeks.

The challenge: integrate data from ERP, POS, customer surveys, labor, and financial systems for a conference showcase. Leveraging Microsoft Fabric, Lantern rapidly developed a scalable, user-friendly analytics platform. The pilot successfully debuted at the conference, unifying diverse data sources into actionable insights.

It demonstrated the solution’s potential to scale across the entire franchise network. This Fabric-powered initiative met the tight deadline and positioned the company to enhance data-driven decision-making across its franchise operations.

Business Challenge

A major quick-service restaurant chain faced a pressing need to deliver on its promise of a comprehensive analytics portal for franchisees. With their annual franchisee conference rapidly approaching, the company had just four weeks to develop and showcase an early version of the solution.

The challenge was multifaceted:

1. Integrate multiple disparate data sources, including their ERP system, Point of Sale (POS) system, customer satisfaction surveys, labor data, and financial information on voids, discounts, and costs of goods sold.
2. Create a user-friendly analytics platform that could provide meaningful insights to franchisees.
3. Ensure the solution was scalable to accommodate future growth and full deployment across the franchise network.
4. Meet the tight four-week deadline to have a working pilot ready for the conference.

The stakes were high, as this pilot would set the tone for the company’s data strategy and franchisee relations moving forward.

Solution

To meet this challenging timeline and complex requirements, the quick-service restaurant chain partnered with Lantern, a Microsoft-only consulting firm. Leveraging Microsoft Fabric, a unified analytics platform, Lantern was able to rapidly develop and deploy the promised analytics portal.

The solution focused on three key areas:

1. Rapid Data Integration: Utilizing Fabric’s robust capabilities, Lantern designed a system to seamlessly pull data from multiple sources:
   • ERP system for overall business data
     • Included feeds from the POS system for detailed sales information, voids, and discounts
     • Labor data for workforce insights
     • Costs of goods sold data for profitability insights
   • Customer satisfaction survey results
   • Master Data Management system for curated store and franchisee information
     • Included mappings for franchisee users to stores for Row Level Security (RLS)
2. Scalable Analytics Dashboard: Lantern developed a user-friendly, branded dashboard using Power BI within the Fabric ecosystem. Named “Blender Insights,” this dashboard offered franchisees a comprehensive view of their operations, combining all data sources into actionable insights.
3. Future-Proof Architecture: The solution was designed with scalability in mind, capable of expanding from the initial pilot to full deployment across the entire franchise network.

Lantern capitalized on Fabric’s SaaS architecture, enabling rapid deployment for the pilot while ensuring the ability to scale for future needs.

Implementation Process

Lantern’s implementation of the Microsoft Fabric solution was an intensive four-week sprint, characterized by agile methodologies and close collaboration with the client.

Key aspects of the implementation included:

1. Rapid environment setup, leveraging Fabric’s SaaS capabilities to have the basic infrastructure in place within a day.
2. Iterative development of data pipelines to integrate the various data sources and ensure accurate data flow.
3. Continuous refinement of the dashboard design, balancing comprehensive data presentation with user-friendliness.
4. Regular check-ins with the client to ensure alignment with business needs and conference presentation requirements.

Despite the challenge of integrating diverse data sources in a short timeframe, Lantern’s expertise in Microsoft technologies allowed for swift progress. The team successfully navigated the tight timeline, delivering a robust pilot solution that met all key requirements just in time for the franchisee conference.

Technology Details

The pilot solution leveraged several key components of Microsoft Fabric to create a scalable analytics platform:

1. Fabric Data Factory: Used for data ingestion, pulling information from the ERP system and customer satisfaction surveys.
2. Fabric Data Warehouse: Employed a three-tier structure:
   • Staging database for daily data pulls
   • Archive database for complete historical data
   • Data mart for optimized reporting
3. SQL-based Transformation: Utilized SQL stored procedures for data transformation, integrating and harmonizing data from multiple sources to capitalize on the customer’s existing skillsets.
4. Power BI: Created a Direct Lake semantic model directly linked to the data mart, ensuring real-time data updates without manual refreshes.
5. Row-Level Security: Implemented to restrict franchisee access to only their store data, while allowing corporate users full visibility.

This architecture provided a scalable, secure, and performant solution, capable of expanding from the pilot to full production use across the franchise network.

Results and Benefits

• Strategic Success
  • Successful unveiling at the franchisee conference, meeting the company’s commitment
  • Positive reception from franchisees and executives, with high demand for immediate access
  • Foundation laid for full-scale implementation and future enhancements
• Operational Improvements
  • Comprehensive integration of data from multiple sources
  • Enhanced decision-making capabilities for franchisees through a holistic view of operations
  • Improved data accessibility, consolidating multiple sources into one intuitive dashboard
• Technical Achievements
  • Demonstrated scalability of the solution, proving its potential to handle data from the entire franchise network
  • Successful integration of diverse data sources within a tight four-week timeframe
  • Creation of a secure, performant system capable of supporting future growth and advanced analytics

This pilot project not only met immediate business needs but also positioned the company for long-term data-driven success.

Looking Ahead

Following the pilot’s success, the quick-service restaurant chain is planning a full-scale rollout of the analytics portal to all franchisees. The company is also considering additional data integration and analytics capabilities.

Lantern’s implementation of Microsoft Fabric met the immediate need for the conference while providing a foundation for broader deployment. The solution integrated multiple data sources, offering franchisees and corporate leadership improved access to operational insights.

This project demonstrates the potential of combining appropriate technology with experienced implementation partners to address complex business requirements, even under tight timelines.

As the company moves forward, this data integration effort is expected to support more informed decision-making across the franchise network.