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Viva Energy Gains AI Advantage With Revolutionary Approach To Edge Computing
Viva Energy has transformed the face of retail with one of the world’s largest ever edge computing rollouts, leveraging the latest in Microsoft Azure Local, data management for Microsoft Data Fabric, and AI innovation through Microsoft Co Pilot Studio.
The story started when Viva Energy purchased both Coles Express and OTR, becoming one of Australia’s largest fuel/convenience retailers. Viva Energy set the goal to simultaneously modernise its expanded technology environment of more than 700 stores. The timeframe was ambitious but with automation achieved.
Now operating in a modern environment, Viva Energy is on track to use AI to achieve sustainability goals, improve workplace experiences for its workforce and improve customer services – and to do all this while ensuring it remains price competitive by streamlining OpEx costs across the store network.
CLIENT VISION
Viva Energy aimed to modernise the on-premises environment of 700+ stores by connecting them in hybrid cloud while simultaneously deploying a data platform to begin collecting accurate real time data from every store. The goal was to achieve this within an accelerated time frame of months, to coincide with the acquisition of the new stores.
Viva Energy identified that the automation provided by unique LAB³ accelerators in deploying Microsoft technologies was the only path forward.
Outcomes Achieved
Without disrupting customer services or customer rewards programs, Viva Energy’s vision was achieved. It is now benefiting from accurate real time data from all 700+ stores for reporting on information like revenue coming in, revenue going out, the types and quantity of products being purchased by customers, the logistics of managing supply from wholesalers and manufacturers, and transaction and customer data.
Further, with its data in a secure environment, the Viva Energy team is now leading the way in Retail with AI innovation.
The technology approach taken by Viva Energy is repeatable. Given the potential to revolutionise edge computing, the solution was chosen to feature at Microsoft Ignite 2024.
THE TECHNOLOGY APPROACH
Building New Azure Landing Zone
Viva Energy used LAB³’s landing zone accelerator to build an Azure Landing Zone in 3 weeks. The landing zone is aligned with the Microsoft CAF, meets IRAP and ISO27001 compliance requirements, and with inbuilt automation, is scalable.
Connecting Stores with Azure Local
Viva Energy deployed Azure Local to connect every store’s on-premises environment to its new landing zone – in a 4-month timeframe.
For this LAB³, Microsoft, Lenovo and the Viva Energy team formed a modern partnership, united to achieve success for Viva Energy. The partnership delivered edge computing solutions with three global firsts:
The outcome for Viva Energy: operational resilience and faster transaction processing across all stores even at sites located in remote areas.
Microsoft Fabric Deployment for Data Platform
As the base for its AI development, Viva Energy needed an enterprise data landing zone. It decided on a data native approach and identified Microsoft Fabric as the most appropriate data landing zone to securely host its data, and which has an ability to include Copilot and AI features over the top.
Again, with unique LAB³ accelerators, Viva Energy not only deployed, understood the security controls, and applied Fabric, but also implemented it, with all the data pipelines ready to go, set to ingest from a potential 4000 data sources. This included configuring the platform to set up patterns to migrate data at scale with security baked in.
From day one of go-live in the pilot store, initial challenges were quickly overcome allowing for the exponential and seamless migration across all 700+ stores in weeks.
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