Information Builders Case Studies WebFOCUS Shifts the BI Paradigm at World Wide Technology

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	WebFOCUS Shifts the BI Paradigm at World Wide Technology Information Builders

WebFOCUS Shifts the BI Paradigm at World Wide Technology

Information Builders

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Applicable Industries	Electronics Telecommunications
Applicable Functions	Discrete Manufacturing Procurement
Use Cases	Inventory Management Predictive Maintenance Supply Chain Visibility
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services Data Science Services
Challenge	World Wide Technology (WWT) was facing a challenge with its existing business intelligence (BI) toolset, which comprised Oracle’s Discover, Portal, and Reports solutions used in conjunction with an Oracle enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The company was also dealing with a proliferation of hand-coded reports, as business users often requested “one-offs.” This put a strain on the IT department by requiring it to support more than 1,000 individual reports and dashboards. The company needed a major overhaul of its reporting infrastructure in order to remain competitive. They envisioned a BI environment that would enable business users to build, schedule, and automatically distribute their own reports and dashboards, allowing the IT team to focus on maintaining and organizing the data. Read More
About Customer	World Wide Technology (WWT) is a value-added reseller and systems integrator that provides technology products, services, and supply-chain solutions. The company moves billions of dollars of equipment each year for IT hardware giants such as HP, Dell, and Cisco. WWT has become a recognized industry leader, providing its global customers with technology products, services, and supply-chain solutions. The St. Louis, Missouri-based company recently helped Dell to consolidate its supply chain – reducing costs, boosting operational efficiency, and increasing visibility and control among its partners. The efficiency of WWT’s core business is highly dependent on information technology. Read More
Solution	WWT decided to standardize on Information Builders’ WebFOCUS BI platform to enable the creation of flexible self-service reporting solutions. They deployed Active Technology reports and dashboards to give individuals more autonomy and control. Active Technology reports can be downloaded and viewed within a browser, either online or offline. Users don’t need to install any software or even be connected to the reporting server to view the dashboards or to sort, summarize, and drill down into reports. WebFOCUS was clearly more flexible and cost effective than the alternatives. Because WebFOCUS can run on any platform, with any application server, and access any data, WWT’s hardware costs were much lower – outweighing core licensing costs. After training internal developers and establishing some architectural standards for the company, WWT began developing financial reporting applications. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Applicable Industries

Electronics

Telecommunications

Applicable Functions

Discrete Manufacturing

Procurement

Use Cases

Inventory Management

Predictive Maintenance

Supply Chain Visibility

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

Data Science Services

Challenge

World Wide Technology (WWT) was facing a challenge with its existing business intelligence (BI) toolset, which comprised Oracle’s Discover, Portal, and Reports solutions used in conjunction with an Oracle enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The company was also dealing with a proliferation of hand-coded reports, as business users often requested “one-offs.” This put a strain on the IT department by requiring it to support more than 1,000 individual reports and dashboards. The company needed a major overhaul of its reporting infrastructure in order to remain competitive. They envisioned a BI environment that would enable business users to build, schedule, and automatically distribute their own reports and dashboards, allowing the IT team to focus on maintaining and organizing the data.

About Customer

World Wide Technology (WWT) is a value-added reseller and systems integrator that provides technology products, services, and supply-chain solutions. The company moves billions of dollars of equipment each year for IT hardware giants such as HP, Dell, and Cisco. WWT has become a recognized industry leader, providing its global customers with technology products, services, and supply-chain solutions. The St. Louis, Missouri-based company recently helped Dell to consolidate its supply chain – reducing costs, boosting operational efficiency, and increasing visibility and control among its partners. The efficiency of WWT’s core business is highly dependent on information technology.

Solution

WWT decided to standardize on Information Builders’ WebFOCUS BI platform to enable the creation of flexible self-service reporting solutions. They deployed Active Technology reports and dashboards to give individuals more autonomy and control. Active Technology reports can be downloaded and viewed within a browser, either online or offline. Users don’t need to install any software or even be connected to the reporting server to view the dashboards or to sort, summarize, and drill down into reports. WebFOCUS was clearly more flexible and cost effective than the alternatives. Because WebFOCUS can run on any platform, with any application server, and access any data, WWT’s hardware costs were much lower – outweighing core licensing costs. After training internal developers and establishing some architectural standards for the company, WWT began developing financial reporting applications.

Impact #1	Financial analysts, sales and marketing personnel, vendor relationship teams, and others spend time analyzing data instead of compiling it.
Impact #2	WWT has lower inventory carrying costs, invoices get paid more quickly, and managers have better visibility into finances.
Impact #3	WebFOCUS has completely renovated WWT’s weekly financial reporting process.

Impact #1

Financial analysts, sales and marketing personnel, vendor relationship teams, and others spend time analyzing data instead of compiling it.

Impact #2

WWT has lower inventory carrying costs, invoices get paid more quickly, and managers have better visibility into finances.

Impact #3

WebFOCUS has completely renovated WWT’s weekly financial reporting process.

Benefit #1	Saves an average of eight hours each week per analyst.
Benefit #2	Lower inventory carrying costs.
Benefit #3	Faster payment of invoices.

Benefit #1

Saves an average of eight hours each week per analyst.

Benefit #2

Lower inventory carrying costs.

Benefit #3

Faster payment of invoices.

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Overview

WebFOCUS Shifts the BI Paradigm at World Wide Technology

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit