Customer case study
Beavertown Brewery
and Zap Data Hub
Customer case study
Beavertown Brewery
and Zap Data Hub
Case study
A. J Wells and SYSPRO
From Grains to Gains in Data:
How Beavertown Brewery mastered their reporting with Zap Data Hub
About
Beavertown Brewery
Beavertown Brewery, based in London, United Kingdom, is a renowned craft beer producer that has carved a niche in the highly competitive beverage industry. With rapid growth in both revenue and workforce, the company has scaled significantly, employing approximately 220 people today.
Known for their innovative approach and high-quality brews, Beavertown continues to thrive, expanding both domestically and internationally.
Industry
Craft Beer, FMCG
Website
Solution
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Background
As Beavertown transitioned from a small to mid-sized company, the complexities of managing and analysing operational and commercial data began to grow. The brewery’s existing systems, primarily SAP Business One (SAP B1), held valuable transactional information, however, these insights were difficult to extract, leading to inefficiencies. Before adopting Zap Data Hub, reporting relied heavily on manual processes using SQL queries, Excel files, and shared drives, creating bottlenecks and inconsistent data.
Max Smith, Data and Analytics Manager at Beavertown, is part of the D&T team that inherited this fragmented ecosystem. He describes the pre-Zap environment as one where essential business units - such as sales, supply chain, and finance, were often conflicted on key metrics. This led to inefficiencies, with different departments working from isolated versions of the truth, resulting in data misalignment and protracted decision-making.
Challenges faced
The rapid growth of Beavertown’s operations intensified the need for reliable data management. With their small team expanding to over 220 employees, disconnected datasets and outdated reporting methods introduced significant delays, making it harder to keep up with the pace of operations. Beavertown needed to automate manual processes, consolidate data across the organisation, and ensure alignment between departments.
Additionally, critical reports, such as those required for specialist tax reporting, relied on complex SQL queries developed by former employees, creating a technical bottleneck, and a lack of documentation made it difficult for new analysts to work with these queries, increasing the risk of errors and slowing down operations.
Solution outcomes
Beavertown implemented Zap Data Hub to streamline data flows, automate processes, and improve reporting efficiency. During the implementation phase, Max Smith and his team collaborated with Zap’s consultants to train internal modellers—one for each department—on how to create data pipelines and load necessary information into the semantic layer. Over 12 weeks, the core model was built from scratch, meeting Max’s expectations for a pre-Xmas rollout.
Zap’s seamless integration with SAP B1 was instrumental in creating unified metrics that aligned departments. Teams no longer operated in silos; instead, data became accessible through a centralised platform, improving interdepartmental alignment. Beavertown also made extensive use of Zap’s email automation features, enabling reports to be distributed directly without sacrificing the use of Excel, a crucial tool for many staff members.
Zap has unlocked horizontal expertise within Beavertown by enabling each team to generate their own reports, removing the need for intermediaries.
Max Smith,
Data and Analytics Manager, Beavertown Brewery
The introduction of Zap unlocked “horizontal expertise” within the organisation, according to Smith. Rather than relying on a single department for cross-functional reports, each team was empowered to create reports directly related to their area of expertise. This newfound autonomy reduced dependence on intermediaries, improving both efficiency and accuracy.
Conclusion
The implementation of Zap Data Hub has transformed Beavertown Brewery’s approach to data management. The brewery now enjoys improved operational and commercial visibility, faster decision-making, and a reduction in data inconsistencies. With robust data governance, teams can trust the accuracy and integrity of their data, making it impossible to return to the previous fragmented processes. By empowering departments to self-serve their reporting needs, Zap has not only eliminated bottlenecks but also helped foster a culture of data-driven decision-making across the organisation.
Looking ahead, Beavertown sees potential in expanding their use of Zap with deeper Power BI integration, further future-proofing their data strategy as the company grows.
About
Beavertown Brewery
Beavertown Brewery, based in London, United Kingdom, is a renowned craft beer producer that has carved a niche in the highly competitive beverage industry.
With rapid growth in both revenue and workforce, the company has scaled significantly, employing approximately 220 people today.
Known for their innovative approach and high-quality brews, Beavertown continues to thrive, expanding both domestically and internationally.
Industry
Craft Beer, FMCG
Website
Solution
Want a copy of this case study?
Background
As Beavertown transitioned from a small to mid-sized company, the complexities of managing and analysing operational and commercial data began to grow. The brewery’s existing systems, primarily SAP Business One (SAP B1), held valuable transactional information, however, these insights were difficult to extract, leading to inefficiencies.
Before adopting Zap Data Hub, reporting relied heavily on manual processes using SQL queries, Excel files, and shared drives, creating bottlenecks and inconsistent data.
Zap’s integration with SAP B1 has ensured alignment across departments, reducing conflicting versions of truth and improving decision-making.
Max Smith,
Data and Analytics Manager, Beavertown Brewery
Max Smith, Data and Analytics Manager at Beavertown, is part of the D&T team that inherited this fragmented ecosystem. He describes the pre-Zap environment as one where essential business units - such as sales, supply chain, and finance, were often conflicted on key metrics such as production efficiency and sales performance. This led to inefficiencies, with different departments working from isolated versions of the truth, resulting in data misalignment and protracted decision-making.
Challenges faced
The rapid growth of Beavertown’s operations intensified the need for reliable data management. With their small team expanding to over 240 employees, disconnected datasets and outdated reporting methods introduced significant delays, making it harder to keep up with the pace of operations. Beavertown needed to automate manual processes, consolidate data across the organisation, and ensure alignment between departments.
Additionally, critical reports, such as those for specialist tax reporting and regulatory traceability, relied on complex SQL queries developed by former employees. This created a technical bottleneck, while a lack of documentation made it difficult for new analysts to work with these queries, increasing the risk of errors and slowing down operations. In regulated industries like Food & Beverage, and Pharmaceuticals, traceability is crucial - companies must track raw materials from production to customers, with annual audits ensuring compliance.
Solution outcomes
Beavertown implemented Zap Data Hub to streamline data flows, automate processes, and improve reporting efficiency. During the implementation phase, Max Smith and his team collaborated with Zap’s consultants to train internal modellers - one for each department - on how to create data pipelines and load necessary information into the semantic layer. Over 12 weeks, the core model was built from scratch, meeting Max’s expectations for a pre-Xmas rollout.
Centralized data for master accuracy
Zap integrated seamlessly with SAP B1, consolidating customer and product data into a single source of truth. This ensured consistency across departments like finance, logistics, and sales. Teams could now access unified records for barcodes, weights, and pallet configurations, eliminating errors and improving collaboration.
Streamlined sales reporting
Beavertown created an “In-Flight Sales” dashboard, providing a mid-month view of sales performance, comparing actuals against annual plans and revised forecasts. Updated twice daily, it enabled teams to quickly identify trends, adjust strategies, and optimise channel performance.
Production insights & compliance
Zap integrated seamlessly with SAP B1, consolidating customer and product data into a single source of truth. This ensured consistency across departments like finance, logistics, and sales. Teams could now access unified records for barcodes, weights, and pallet configurations, eliminating errors and improving collaboration.
Empowered teams & adoption
Zap’s self-service capabilities allowed teams to create their own reports, reducing reliance on technical staff. With 50 active users weekly, reports became widely accessible, and user activity dashboards ensured focus on impactful tools.
Conclusion
The implementation of Zap Data Hub has transformed Beavertown Brewery’s approach to data management. The brewery now enjoys improved operational and commercial visibility, faster decision-making, and a reduction in data inconsistencies. With robust data governance, teams can trust the accuracy and integrity of their data, making it impossible to return to the previous fragmented processes.
Zap has unlocked horizontal expertise within Beavertown by enabling each team to generate their own reports, removing the need for intermediaries.
Max Smith,
Data and Analytics Manager, Beavertown Brewery
By empowering departments to self-serve their reporting needs, Zap has not only eliminated bottlenecks but also helped foster a culture of data-driven decision-making across the organisation.
Looking ahead, Beavertown sees potential in expanding their use of Zap with deeper Power BI integration, further future-proofing their data strategy as the company grows.
Zap Data Hub provides A. J Wells & Sons with clean, unified and easily accessible reporting between SYSPRO and Power BI.
Industry:
Manufacturing
Website:
Requirements:
Unify reports across different sales inputs and make financial reporting more straightforward to support decision making processes and detect trends
Data Sources:
SYSPRO, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Excel, Power BI
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Background
A. J Wells is a privately-owned, family-controlled business focusing on the design and manufacture of high quality stoves. It also manufactures vitreous enamel products and imports fair trade tiles and pumice chimney. It began in 1972 as a small engineering business on the Isle of Wight and has grown from the original three staff to over 100, now occupying a factory of over 50,000 square feet.
Rob Holgate joined the company in 2019 as head of finance and immediately noted that although the managers’ instincts were good, they needed to be supported by better quality data.
Challenges
A. J Wells had been using SYSPRO for almost a decade and a half and from the manufacturing and planning point of view it was excellent. When Holgate joined the company, however, he noticed some difficulty in getting information out quickly, financial reporting and being able to spot (and substantiate) trends.
"We were previously using Crystal Reports. One of our finance team had learned Crystal inside out and was the only one really who could really build reports. So skills were siloed but also you'd often get a great report built out, but when you needed the same info in an Excel spreadsheet, it could take half a day of reformatting!"
Coupled with the lack of a dedicated financial director, the system wasn’t anywhere as flexible or adaptable as the busines required. Different sales executives were putting information in using different methods so the CRM system didn’t quite agree with the accounting system.
Holgate found Zap Data Hub by Googling. He faced the task, as a new member of staff, of having to tell senior management that their existing systems were not up to scratch and persuading them to spend money on a replacement.
“A. J Wells has been using SYSPRO as its ERP since 2005. They’ve found it works very well from the manufacturing point of view, and planning all your production. Though they did have a challenge in getting financial reporting out quickly, and being able to spot trends. They had a very good gut feeling for the business, but the actual data to back up the gut feeling was always very difficult to get to. I started to look around, we looked at Power BI, connecting the tables, and I just did a Google search for SYSPRO, Power BI and Zap came up!”
Solution
Prior to implementing Zap, Holgate embarked on an in-house data warehouse build, and using his own skill to interrogate the SYSPRO system for financial reports. But he quickly hit a proverbial brick wall, not because of skill but because of the time it was taking. It was then that he called in Zap to bring automation to the process.
“Being able to demonstrate extra information, extra trends that the business had never looked at or viewed before - that was the primer to realising that we need to go with a proper system, and that’s why we ended up with Zap.”
Zap Data Hub quickly built out the data warehouse and integrated all relevant data sources, although Holgate doesn’t regret trying the in-house route first as it did get him into the habit of getting data in and out of any system cleanly and tidily.
The company adoption of Zap Data Hub solved their data management and analytics problems immediately. The result is a better business with high quality information about which parts are yielding the most profit.
"As much as I enjoy building reports and the challenge of doing that, the real challenge is to spend more time looking at the data rather than building the reports! Initially at A. J Wells, it took so much effort to get the right data that people had lost energy by the time it came to interpretation. Or the end user was coming back with small amends which lead whoever had spent three days assembling the data to pulling their hair out!"
“Whereas now, now we can have the data there: it’s good, it’s clean, it’s consistent. It’s on a timely basis. We can actually spend our energies looking at the data, and looking at the trends. And then being able to make the business decisions based on that.”
Benefits
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A clean view shared by all. Previously if information was needed it was a matter of asking an accountant, who would take days to come back with answers. Information is now available within minutes
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Better reporting and insights. Previously a high turnover client might be regarded as profitable by default; superior reporting has demonstrated that some of these are, for example, buying only twice a year when there is an offer or discount available, and yielding little profit as a result
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Data syncs much more quickly and easily than it did when using Microsoft Dynamics and SYSPRO
Partnership highlights
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Increased interdepartmental alignment: Zap centralised key metrics, providing a single source of truth across departments.
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Empowered teams with self-service reporting: Modeller and reporter communities now manage their own data, increasing efficiency.
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Automated processes and workflows: Seamless integration with Power Automate and Zap’s email automation reduced manual reporting tasks.