The Customer
Nexus Water Group is a leading integrated water utility that manages vast volumes of operational, financial, and customer data. The organization focuses on maintaining a modern, scalable data foundation to ensure they remain competitive and compliant while delivering critical insights across their business units.
The Project
Nexus Water embarked on a digital transformation journey to modernize its enterprise data warehouse. The company migrated from a legacy on-premises SAP BW environment to SAP Datasphere, a cloud-native platform that simplifies data modeling and analytics while preparing the business for future innovation.
Overview
As a leading integrated water-utility, Nexus Water manages vast volumes of operational, financial, and customer data. Its aging SAP BW landscape had become costly to maintain and could no longer keep pace with growing reporting demands. Analysts depended on BEx Analyzer workbooks and offline spreadsheets, resulting in version conflicts, delayed insights, and limited self-service. To remain competitive and compliant, the organization needed a modern, scalable data foundation.
The Business Challenges
Aging & Rigid BW System – Custom infocubes and complex ETL chains slowed development and introduced technical debt.
A Siloed Analytics – Finance, Sales and other teams each maintained separate reporting logic, leading to inconsistent KPIs.
Manual Reporting Effort – Over 40 BEx workbooks required manual refresh, distribution, and formatting every month.
Limited Data Exports – Critical data extracts for data scientists relied on ad-hoc ABAP programs, hindering advanced analytics
Our Solution
Nexus Water partnered with Improving to deliver a BW Modernization program completed in just 5 months. Key milestones included:
Foundation in SAP Datasphere – 14 re-engineered analytical models covering Sales, Finance G/L, Finance AR, Contracts, Energy, and more, leveraging Datasphere’s Data Builder and space-based architecture.
Reporting Modernization – 40 interactive reports rebuilt as SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) Stories and Data Analyzer views, replacing BEx workbooks with intuitive, realtime dashboards.
Python Data Export Framework – A reusable Python notebook library orchestrated in DSP to automate secure data extracts for advanced analytics and integrations.
Technologies & Methodologies Used
Core Solution Technologies
SAP Datasphere: The cloud-native platform used as the foundation for the new data warehouse.
SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC): Used for real-time reporting, creating "Stories," and Data Analyzer views.
Python: Used to build a reusable notebook library for the Data Export Framework to automate secure data extracts.
Legacy & Migrated Technologies
SAP BW (Business Warehouse): The legacy on-premises environment that was migrated from.
BEx Analyzer: The legacy reporting tool that was replaced by SAC.
ABAP: Legacy programs previously used for data extracts.
Spreadsheets: Offline tools previously used by analysts.
Accelerators
BW2SPHERE: Improving's specific migration accelerator used to speed up the delivery.
The Business Benefits
Faster Insights – Query runtimes improved by up to 60%
Unified Data Model – A single governed semantic layer eliminated KPI discrepancies across departments.
Self-Service Analytics – Business users create ad-hoc analyses in SAC without IT assistance, reducing report backlog
Lower TCO & Future-Ready – Cloud infrastructure and simplified data flows cutting maintenance hours and pave the way for AI scenarios.
Alhaj Chaudhry, Accounting Director, Nexus Water Group
Why Improving
Improving’s BW2SPHERE migration accelerators bring deep expertise in utilities data, and a pragmatic agile approach. Our team:
Delivered value in weeks, not months
Ensured knowledge transfer with hands-on enablement for Nexus Water’s analytics team.
Combined data engineering, SAC design, and Python skills to cover the full analytics stack.
