Aikaterini Baousi

For years, PPC—Greece’s leading electric utility—focused on power generation, distribution, and supply. However, our digital channels lagged behind. As part of a major digital transformation, we needed to refactor the core backend engine, powering these channels, due to system decommissioning. This raised a critical challenge: How could we bring customer data closer to our digital channels—reliably, at scale, and without escalating operational costs? Our solution: Confluent. We faced skepticism—tight project timelines, a steep learning curve, resistance to moving beyond Microsoft’s Event Hub, and the ever-present temptation to rely on legacy API calls. Instead of a big-bang approach, we started small: streaming CRM data via Confluent’s CDC connector into PostgreSQL on Azure. This eliminated API bottlenecks, mitigated quota limitations, improved resilience, and optimized operational costs. Challenges arose—simultaneous CRM migrations overloaded connectors, requiring fine-tuned data handling. But we pushed through. Today, our digital channels operate with a real-time, unified customer view, improved response times, and Confluent serving as the foundation of our data strategy. Now…