Information Builders Case Studies Helzberg Diamonds Shines With WebFOCUS

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	Helzberg Diamonds Shines With WebFOCUS Information Builders

Helzberg Diamonds Shines With WebFOCUS

Information Builders

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Applicable Industries	Retail
Applicable Functions	Business Operation Sales & Marketing
Use Cases	Inventory Management Supply Chain Visibility
Services	Software Design & Engineering Services System Integration
Challenge	Helzberg Diamonds, a fine jewelry retailer with 233 stores across the U.S., needed to build a robust business intelligence environment connected to a variety of data warehouse platforms. The company wanted to process and ensure the quality of huge quantities of point-of-sale (POS) data and provide up-to-date information for store managers and decision-makers. The company’s existing reporting tools were unable to seamlessly access information in a new database and make it readily available to those who needed it most. The company was spending an hour a day manually pulling data from disparate sources to create sales dashboards for regional managers. Once completed, each of those regional managers would take those dashboards, manipulate the information they contained in Excel or other formats, and distribute the results to each store manager. Every morning, 35 highly paid regional managers were spending their first hour sorting through Excel spreadsheets, a huge drain on productivity. Read More
About Customer	Helzberg Diamonds is a fine jewelry retailer with 3,000 employees and 233 stores in 39 states. The company is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway and has been providing fine jewelry to customers for nearly 100 years. It has gone through plenty of operational updates and information technology overhauls, the most recent of which entailed a switch to the Netezza platform, a high-powered data warehouse appliance. Previously, it used BI technology from Brio/Hyperion to report against an enterprise data warehouse created with IBM DB2 as the basis for operational reporting. Other reporting is done using Oracle Hyperion and Essbase. Read More
Solution	Helzberg turned to the WebFOCUS BI platform from Information Builders. The company created hundreds of reports, scorecards, and dashboards tailored to the needs of corporate, regional, and in-store managers. They devised a cohesive reporting database to ensure high-quality data throughout the organization. WebFOCUS offered greater overall ease of use, which the organization needed to ensure continued success in a highly competitive environment. Another key differentiator was connectivity to a broad set of databases and applications. For example, WebFOCUS can seamlessly retrieve information from such sources as Microsoft SQL Server, JD Edwards, Hyperion Essbase, and Netezza. Information Builders Professional Services helped Helzberg to get started, and some of the company’s key developers also attended training classes. They ultimately replaced nearly 100 Brio reports, including their daily net sales, merchandising, divisional statistic, and vendor reports; store-level and associate-level scorecards; and a variety of point-of-sale analytics. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Applicable Industries

Retail

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Sales & Marketing

Use Cases

Inventory Management

Supply Chain Visibility

Services

Software Design & Engineering Services

System Integration

Challenge

Helzberg Diamonds, a fine jewelry retailer with 233 stores across the U.S., needed to build a robust business intelligence environment connected to a variety of data warehouse platforms. The company wanted to process and ensure the quality of huge quantities of point-of-sale (POS) data and provide up-to-date information for store managers and decision-makers. The company’s existing reporting tools were unable to seamlessly access information in a new database and make it readily available to those who needed it most. The company was spending an hour a day manually pulling data from disparate sources to create sales dashboards for regional managers. Once completed, each of those regional managers would take those dashboards, manipulate the information they contained in Excel or other formats, and distribute the results to each store manager. Every morning, 35 highly paid regional managers were spending their first hour sorting through Excel spreadsheets, a huge drain on productivity.

About Customer

Helzberg Diamonds is a fine jewelry retailer with 3,000 employees and 233 stores in 39 states. The company is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway and has been providing fine jewelry to customers for nearly 100 years. It has gone through plenty of operational updates and information technology overhauls, the most recent of which entailed a switch to the Netezza platform, a high-powered data warehouse appliance. Previously, it used BI technology from Brio/Hyperion to report against an enterprise data warehouse created with IBM DB2 as the basis for operational reporting. Other reporting is done using Oracle Hyperion and Essbase.

Solution

Helzberg turned to the WebFOCUS BI platform from Information Builders. The company created hundreds of reports, scorecards, and dashboards tailored to the needs of corporate, regional, and in-store managers. They devised a cohesive reporting database to ensure high-quality data throughout the organization. WebFOCUS offered greater overall ease of use, which the organization needed to ensure continued success in a highly competitive environment. Another key differentiator was connectivity to a broad set of databases and applications. For example, WebFOCUS can seamlessly retrieve information from such sources as Microsoft SQL Server, JD Edwards, Hyperion Essbase, and Netezza. Information Builders Professional Services helped Helzberg to get started, and some of the company’s key developers also attended training classes. They ultimately replaced nearly 100 Brio reports, including their daily net sales, merchandising, divisional statistic, and vendor reports; store-level and associate-level scorecards; and a variety of point-of-sale analytics.

Impact #1	WebFOCUS enhances the flow of information, improving data analysis capabilities and ensuring more timely and accurate decision-making.
Impact #2	WebFOCUS puts accurate, consistent data directly into their spreadsheets, enforcing consistency while placing powerful analysis capabilities at their fingertips.
Impact #3	Managers can change the output formats and use various metrics to slice-and-dice the information as they see fit. Since the IT department maintains the data, everyone starts with the same sanctioned information each time, so their numbers roll up consistently.

Impact #1

WebFOCUS enhances the flow of information, improving data analysis capabilities and ensuring more timely and accurate decision-making.

Impact #2

WebFOCUS puts accurate, consistent data directly into their spreadsheets, enforcing consistency while placing powerful analysis capabilities at their fingertips.

Impact #3

Managers can change the output formats and use various metrics to slice-and-dice the information as they see fit. Since the IT department maintains the data, everyone starts with the same sanctioned information each time, so their numbers roll up consistently.

Benefit #1	Helzberg expects to see measurable improvement in company-wide efficiency by enabling decision-makers to access valuable metrics faster than ever before.

Benefit #1

Helzberg expects to see measurable improvement in company-wide efficiency by enabling decision-makers to access valuable metrics faster than ever before.

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Overview

Helzberg Diamonds Shines With WebFOCUS

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit