How PwC Italy transformed Cassa Centrale Banca's BI capabilities for smarter decision-making

INTRODUCTION

Driving agility through data empowerment 

Founded in 1974, Cassa Centrale Banca – Credito Cooperativo Italiano is a leading cooperative banking group in Italy, uniting over 65 affiliated banks across the country.

Its network focuses on retail customers, SMEs, and local enterprises, relying on strong community connections and regional presence to serve them effectively. Guided by cooperative principles such as mutuality, sustainability, and long-term value creation, Gruppo Cassa Centrale combines local autonomy with group-wide efficiency to accelerate business capabilities. As the Group has grown in scale and complexity, consistent and governed data has become a key lever to achieve this balance.

SITUATION

Systems diversity and opportunities in governance

Thanks to its extensive network, Cassa Centrale Banca encountered a variety of data practices across its cooperative banks. This diversity presented an opportunity to enhance the Group’s decision-making processes, encouraging the development of more unified and agile approaches to access information.

This lack of standardisation became a driver for evolving the model to better balance local autonomy with group-wide data governance:

Data fragmentation and limited governance: Reports were created in isolation across more than 20 business domains, without a consistently applied shared framework.

Governance and operating model gaps: As Power BI adoption increased and more business domains accessed data, the existing BI setup could not scale in a controlled way. Without a standardised operating model and governance framework, the risk of data duplication and operational complexity increased.

Operational bottlenecks: Decision-making was slowed down since business users could not use capabilities to analyse data without IT support, relying on central IT processes for data collection and report creation.

To move forward, CCB required a more streamlined BI approach to support these challenges. This meant defining a scalable service model to support departments, empower colleagues to access and analyse data independently, as well as establishing a governance framework capable of scaling without slowing people down.

SOLUTION

Building a scalable, governed, self-service BI model

To address these challenges, Gruppo Cassa Centrale partnered with PwC Italy and Allitude, the Group’s IT service provider, to design and implement a modern BI operating model. PwC was selected as the trusted advisor in Gruppo Cassa Centrale’s transformation process for its ability to align business and IT stakeholders, thanks to a deep understanding of the Group’s organisational complexity, together with proven experience in delivering scalable solutions.

The shared objective was to create a BI environment able to combine flexibility and control, in order to empower business users to work independently while ensuring strong governance and security. Three core pillars made it possible:

BUSINESS

A structured BI operating model

Across all business domains, a clear separation of environments into Sandbox, Test, and Production was introduced. This allowed users to develop and validate their own models without relying on central IT processes before publishing, accelerating reporting cycles while maintaining quality checks after deployment.

GOVERNANCE

Automated monitoring and compliance

To keep data access consistent across all banks, PwC supported CCB and Allitude in implementing a monitoring model that automatically checks adherence to governance guidelines and supports data protection. Using Microsoft Fabric APIs, the team automated critical checks such as adoption monitoring, schedule tracking, failed refreshes, and refresh duration. This approach made the Group’s ability to scale more flexible, reduced operational risk, and secured a more consistent application of rules across the network.

TECHNOLOGY

Enabling flexibility and control

Microsoft Power BI was used as the primary front-end for reporting and analytics, while Dataflows supported the acquisition of data from source systems. Microsoft Fabric was leveraged to collect and monitor platform data through APIs, with automation enabled via Power Automate to support governance and operational oversight. This technology stack enabled a scalable and controlled BI environment while improving performance and user experience.

RESULT

Evolution into a data-driven organisation with agility and control

Through this collaboration, Cassa Centrale Banca transformed the way business data is accessed, governed, and used across the Group. Departments are now better positioned to answer questions faster, drawing on trusted, secured data within a controlled self-service model.

According to CCB, the adoption of Microsoft Power BI has scaled significantly across the organisation, with active users increasing by around 80% and self‑service analytics becoming part of day‑to‑day decision‑making. At the same time, the introduction of automated monitoring and governance checks has strengthened compliance and operational oversight, while reducing manual maintenance, thus contributing to lower operational costs.  

This case proves how PwC helps clients navigate complex challenges at the intersection of technology, governance, and business strategy. By combining in-depth technical expertise with a clear understanding of organisational priorities, PwC has enabled CCB to increase its data capability and use more efficiently, providing actual value while building future resilience.