The Red Sea Development Company boosts performance reporting utilizing Microsoft Power Platform

The Red Sea Development Company (TRSDC) is an organization fully owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). It was formed in 2018 to develop and promote The Red Sea Project. “With a 12-year plan, the Red Sea Project is the most ambitious regenerative tourism project in the world,” says Faris Iskandrani, Senior Marketing and Communication Project Manager at TRSDC. When completed, the destination will comprise 22 islands and six inland sites that house hotels, leisure, commercial, and entertainment amenities and employ over 70,000 people directly and indirectly.

To stay on top of its aspirational goals, TRSDC has tasked each of its departments with driving performance improvements. The company’s progress in reaching its economic, social, environmental, and organizational goals is tracked through various business activities and daily operations. In 2020, the company identified 250+ key performance indicators (KPIs) across its departments and functions. The progress on each was evaluated and reported quarterly.

Extended data processing

Previously, employees relied solely on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to process, validate, and consolidate large amounts of data. These spreadsheets were also used to generate the quarterly performance reports for the top management. The data gathering and processing took much time and effort in order for the departments to remain on their KPI targets. Online collaboration was limited as only one user could access and edit the spreadsheets at a time.

“We needed a new way to gather data and speed up the process and submit the information on a single platform where everyone could collaborate,” says Talal AlMalki, Senior Corporate Performance Manager at TRSDC.

Data consolidation and automation

Employees now upload the same data-rich Excel sheets in SharePoint, where the information is automatically organized for faster access and sharing. To ensure data integrity from the different departments, several access layers are provided to team members based on roles. “All the KPIs are listed in SharePoint. We granted access to the teams from specific departments depending on the need. Different people can update multiple information at the same time without losing data integrity,” Hijjawi says.

“Process automation allowed us to convert manual, time-consuming data collection tasks into streamlined reporting process, which enabled our department to increase its focus on value-added activities like data analysis and generation of business insights,” says Mohammed Sulieman AlMoh'd, Senior EPMO Director at TRSDC.

Better, faster reporting

The integrated solution has enabled the organization to establish an effective data collection mechanism. After the shift, the company experienced a 50% reduction in cycle time needed to report KPI values. “Instead of spending a month collecting that data, we now spend about two weeks gathering data from all the departments,” says Manar Abouhenidi, Corporate Performance Specialist at TRSDC. 

"As our company continues to expand, external collaborations become increasingly crucial – our partnership with Microsoft is an example. It enabled us to automate internal procedures, managed by our in-house team, saving at least 250-working hours per quarter,” says Ahmad G. Darwish, Group Chief Administrative Officer at TRSDC.

Migrating to a unified platform has also led to having the KPI data from all departments in a consistent and timely manner. “We have cut the time and effort tremendously that spent on data entry in Excel sheets by consolidating all the information on SharePoint. Eliminating the manual process assists us in reducing human error by achieving a 100% submission of all these KPIs/and a 50% reduction in cycle time needed to report KPI values,” says Abouhenidi.

Another benefit of the solution is the development of a real-time automated dashboard. Using Power BI, the organization now has 82 dashboards across departments. Data is fed directly from SharePoint and other enterprise systems such as SAP, Oracle, and Google Analytics. The dashboards monitor the status of all the KPIs, and whether or not a department has met its target. The CEO and top-level executives review company performance using these dashboards, helping drive decision-making based on the latest status and updates.     

“I have been delighted to see the energy and collaboration within the team, and I am confident that this experience will be crucial in scaling up our company-wide process automation journey,” says AlMoh'd.

Transitioning to enterprise level

With faster KPI reporting because of the Power Platform, TRSDC is on track to achieve its sustainability goals for The Red Sea Project.

Transitioning all projects to enterprise-level with Microsoft’s digital ecosystem is the next major step. The company plans to deploy Microsoft Project for the organization’s enterprise project management. “All of the projects will be automated through Microsoft Project and MS Power Platform, which is another solution that we will utilize to streamline our processes,” Iskandrani concludes. “This will help us become an even more efficient, and ultimately, more sustainable organization.”