Case Study: Walgreens achieves faster reporting and accelerated decision-making with Microsoft Power BI

A data warehouse in the cloud helped Walgreens transform operations and accelerate decision making

Walgreens, a 118‑year‑old drugstore chain with more than 9,200 stores and 240,000 employees, struggled with a costly, slow on‑premises data warehouse as transaction volumes and acquisitions grew. To modernize analytics and support daily inventory and sales reporting, Walgreens worked with Microsoft Power BI and adopted Microsoft Azure services—most notably Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure ExpressRoute, and Azure Blob storage—to scale and secure its data platform.

In a three‑month migration to Azure Synapse, Walgreens moved its inventory data warehouse to the cloud, streaming data via Azure ExpressRoute into Blob storage and using Microsoft Power BI for self‑service visualization. The move cut costs (Azure ran about one‑third the cost of a new on‑prem appliance), reduced annual maintenance, delivered at least 3× better performance, and moved reports from as late as 1:00 PM to available by 9:00 AM—helping store managers and supply‑chain analysts make faster, data‑driven decisions with Microsoft Power BI.

Walgreens

Andy Kettlewell

Vice President Inventory and Analytics