The Problem

It's a familiar pattern: reports that were fast when first built grind to a halt as data grows. Users complain. Trust erodes. Adoption drops.

The instinct is to throw more hardware at it — bigger capacity, more memory. But in most cases, the real problem lives in the data model and the DAX, not the infrastructure.

How We Tackle It

We treat performance tuning as a diagnostic exercise, not a checklist of generic tips. We measure before we touch anything.

Using DAX Studio and VertiPaq Analyzer, we profile the model to pinpoint:

Which tables and columns are consuming the most memory
Which DAX measures are slow — and why
Which relationships have excessive cardinality
Where the query plan is doing unnecessary work

Only after profiling do we implement fixes. The most impactful change in one model might be irrelevant in another. That's why generic advice doesn't cut it.

What You Get

Pre-optimisation baseline (model size, query times, report load times)
Root cause analysis report
Prioritised optimisation plan
Implemented optimisations (model restructuring, DAX rewrites, column removals)
Post-optimisation measurements and side-by-side comparison
Recommendations for ongoing performance management
Full documentation of every change made

Typical Outcomes

Model size: 30–70% smaller
Report load time: 50–90% faster
DAX query execution: 2–10x faster
Scheduled refresh time: significantly reduced

Tools & Technologies

DAX Studio (query profiling, execution plan analysis)
VertiPaq Analyzer (model memory analysis)
Power BI Performance Analyzer (visual-level diagnostics)
DAX (measure rewriting)
Power Query M (query folding, transformation optimisation)
Incremental refresh configuration
Aggregations and composite models

Who This Is For

Teams with Power BI reports that take more than three seconds to load
Organisations whose dataset refresh runs for hours
Companies hitting Power BI Premium or Fabric capacity limits
Projects where DAX measures have become inconsistent or impossible to maintain
Any team that has heard "Power BI is slow" from its users

Optimisation & Performance Tuning