X

Devon and Cornwall Police were facing challenges with their previous performance management system, Northgate Information Solutions, which was incapable of meeting the needs of the Force for granular and easily accessible information. The system was outdated and had a disjointed approach between different information systems with no joined up approach for data manipulation, data table amalgamation or presentation. The Force needed a solution that could improve resource allocation, offer better support for intelligence-led policing, and improve information flow between the police and the community.

DIGITURK, the first and only digital platform in Turkey, identified that its Information Systems infrastructure could be improved to match the development of the business. A corporate reporting structure was required to bring the business together and to allow DIGITURK to continue to provide a consistently high level of service to its 2.5 million customers. The key areas that senior management and departmental heads wanted visibility into included, churn and acquisition, sales, marketing, finance, the call centre, Customer Relations Management, Lig TV and media marketing. As the demand for these applications increased, DIGITURK started realizing that maintenance costs rose for the existing applications and for the dashboards that were in the queue to be developed. This was because they had scattered coding and a lack of standards in the visualization. In addition, this also introduced problems with their data consistency, getting one version of the truth, and below par performance as there was no integration with their corporate reporting infrastructure.

Pharmaceutical companies often struggle with negotiating profitable deals with managed care organizations. The lack of transparency into data and the time-consuming process of aggregating data across various sources often leads to suboptimal discounts and deal profitability. Companies need a solution that can provide insights into the potential value of managed care entities, recommend discounts for each account, and project the impact of the deal over time. They also need a tool that can answer specific business questions and deliver insights across disparate data sources.

Dunlop Hiflex Oy, a distribution company specialized in high and low-pressure hoses and fittings, was facing challenges in managing its vast data. The company had streamlined its business processes with the Movex ERP system, which stored all data around sales, purchases, inventories, and deliveries. However, managing this data was challenging in a marketplace where quick deliveries and excellent customer service played central roles. The operational knowledge of the Movex ERP system varied widely across the organization, creating a bottleneck and making analysis too slow. The IT staff was overwhelmed with frequent requests for aggregated information, resulting in the inability to deliver timely information. The company needed a solution that all employees could use to quickly and easily modify the data to meet their personal requirements.

EAT, a successful high street food retailer in London, was facing challenges with its data analysis process. The company was relying on Excel for data analysis, which involved going through numerous spreadsheets to find specific information. The process of downloading data to share with teams was time-consuming and led to inconsistencies when different employees ended up working from various versions of the 'latest' information. This was particularly problematic in the fast-paced food and drink industry where product popularity can change rapidly due to factors like competitor deals or weather changes. EAT needed a system that could provide managers with instant access to easily digestible information in real-time.

Ecenarro, a Spanish manufacturer specializing in the production and supply of fasteners and special parts for the automotive industry, was struggling with its legacy business intelligence system. The data to be analyzed was exported from the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to Excel spreadsheets and then processed manually to obtain the required results. This process was time-consuming and inefficient, often resulting in the data being outdated by the time it was ready for analysis. The company needed a solution that could provide immediate access to key performance indicators and other critical business data.

Eden Park, a sportswear brand, was facing limitations with its traditional BI tool acquired in 2002. The tool was no longer meeting the needs of the purchasing, sales, production, and management controlling departments. They were only using 20% of the product for their analyses and reporting, and spending 80% of their time reprocessing the data in Excel. The company was looking for a solution that was fast to implement, easy to manage, and truly effective. The challenge was to meet the evolving needs of management controlling.

eQuest, a leading provider of job delivery services, collects approximately five million job board performance statistics weekly. With this volume of data, the company needed a business intelligence (BI) solution that could analyze this data and produce impactful insights for its customers. The company was looking for a solution that could help them visually digest the information in order to strategically advise their customers. They needed a BI solution that could provide companies with insights into its data so that useful and impactful decisions can be made.

Essent N.V., an energy company supplying gas, electricity, and energy services to consumers and businesses in the Netherlands and Belgium, was facing challenges in implementing Business Intelligence (BI) as a strategic tool. The IT department at Essent believed that BI was an important solution to gain insight into the business. However, the business had a preconceived idea that all BI solutions on the market required in-depth technical knowledge, extensive programming, and had a long response time before the required data was ready for analysis. The costs of expanding a traditional BI platform were not supported at Essent; they felt that the benefits were not in line with the costs. Furthermore, IT wanted to change their role within the company to become an enabler instead of being the facilitator. They wanted to provide business with solutions which put them in control and give them the tools to manage their data proactively.

Emons Spedition, a transportation and logistics company, was facing several challenges. They needed to optimize transport by conducting a detailed analysis of dispatch and merchandise structures. They wanted to identify the links between weight, volume, and timing with reference to price. They also required greater cost transparency. The manual evaluations based on the Euromistral ERP system were too laborious and time-consuming, making it difficult for them to achieve their goals.

Energiedienstholding was facing a challenge with their existing SAP-BW system. The system was too time-consuming as most standard filters and interfaces could not be used directly due to the need for individual adaptability. As a result, essential reporting and planning were carried out manually in Excel, which was inefficient and prone to errors. Furthermore, the requirements for analysis and simulation in seven parallel accounting systems were increasing sharply within Energiedienstholding, adding to the complexity and workload.

Enganches y Remolques Aragón, a Spanish company specializing in the manufacturing of winches for vehicles, trailers, electrical kits, and various automotive accessories, was facing a challenge in processing all company information relating to the commercial sector in a rapid and straightforward manner. The company wanted to keep control of all businesses processes with a single BI environment. The initial need to adopt a business intelligence (BI) solution was felt in its commercial department, because sales, customer care and the commercial area in general were important to the company. However, they realized the potential that a BI solution could offer for other departments in their organization, so they expanded its use to the cash flow, finance, production, and marketing departments.

Estrella, a Swedish snack food producer, was bought from Kraft Food in 2008. One of the conditions of the deal was that Estrella could only continue using Kraft Food’s IT systems during a transition period of six months. This meant that Estrella had to build a completely new IT structure from the ground up in record time. During this period, the company had an enormous need for information and a basis for decision-making. There was no CEO, hardly any administrative staff and only a small number of management personnel in place. The new owners, the Norwegian company Herkules Capital, needed to be able to monitor the company’s development, to an even greater extent than usual, through a number of key figures. The company needed to be guided by remote control from Oslo. The company had used an ERP solution from SAP for many years, but did not have time to procure and put in place such a large and complex system.

Exmplar Inc., a leading e-marketing services company, designs and executes complex, data-driven marketing campaigns across multiple channels. The company's 'Brand Personalization' process allows clients to uniquely personalize mail, web pages, print promotions, call center scripts, and even retail spaces. However, despite its in-depth knowledge of customer habits, Exmplar only had static reporting to deliver to its clients. The follow-up queries based on those reports triggered a time-consuming 'one-off' response. Exmplar's VP of Analysis, Jim Williams, started looking at BI tools, but even getting a proof-of-concept from the traditional vendors was a major effort.

Federazione Lombarda di Banche di Credito Cooperativo (FLBCC) had to process and analyze the import of 1 million data lines and 24 million records each month from its member banks. The federation had built its previous data management solution in-house based on software from ACL Services. However, by 2011, FLBCC needed to replace this system with a more agile and scalable business discovery platform to improve productivity with easy-to-use self-service discovery capabilities. The in-house platform required a number of manual interventions and cumbersome repetitions of controls. Databases had to be downloaded and manually processed to obtain historical analysis on a monthly basis. The task was difficult, time-consuming, and error-prone. FLBCC also found that the ACL solution could produce analysis covering a short time span, but wasn’t suitable for longer-term reports.

Feed The Children, an international, nonprofit relief organization, was already using QlikView for its commodities tracking system. However, the system was not being used to its fullest potential. The organization was facing challenges in improving efficiency in gaining access to system data, gaining visibility into donor behavior, and increasing efficiencies in supply chain. The organization annually distributes more than 111 million pounds of food and other essentials to children and their families in the US and internationally, supplementing more than 760,000 meals each day. With such large volumes of goods moving through its six warehouses in the US, the non-profit relies on an in-house commodity tracking system to manage its supply chain from donors to recipients.

Healthcare professionals, in both the public and the private sectors, experience problems with the operational display of information in their numerous clinical, financial, and enterprise resource planning systems. The inability to access, collect and process data efficiently often contributes to financial tensions, longer patient waiting times, constraints on resources, and the risk of clinical errors. The Fernando Fonseca Hospital needed to adopt business intelligence (BI) system that would integrate information and permit its speedy processing in a straightforward and flexible way. Another objective was to acquire a tool that would continually map out and control specific activities in each department, both clinical and non-clinical, allowing the monitoring of evaluation factors identified as critical for good practice.

FFF Enterprises, a multidimensional healthcare company, was facing challenges in accessing real-time data. The pharmaceutical industry's dynamic nature necessitated quick access to information that impacts their business and the delivery of safe, effective products and services. The company had implemented a technology, but it was difficult to use and did not provide easy access to data. This led to a lack of use of the tool. The company needed a solution that would provide real-time data access, be easy to use, and enhance operational efficiency across the company.

Finanmadrid, the financial division of the Cajamadrid Group, was facing challenges with its reporting system. The company's needs for a global, efficient, and optimal reporting system led its Systems Department to seek out an application that would improve both horizontal and vertical reporting. Given the complexity of its operating systems, which were divided up among various technological applications, the main requirement was to find one system that would link together data from all departments. Data were extracted on a monthly basis from the accounting department, the various business divisions, and the general administrative division, thus leading to a need for management reports that were more agile and could be produced more frequently. Greater flexibility was also sought when it came to implementing tactical decisions, the effectiveness of which had to be tested without the complexity of modifying accounting structures.

Finter Bank Zürich, an independent Swiss private bank, was facing performance limitations with its legacy reporting solution. The bank was using a management information system (MIS) based on manual Excel spreadsheet software analyses, which was becoming increasingly complex and error-prone. The time spent producing necessary reports was constantly growing, leading to delays. The old MIS was completely geared to the old system and was no longer capable of meeting new challenges. The bank needed an efficient, up-to-date solution designed around the new infrastructure.

Fleura Export B.V., a Dutch importer and exporter of cut flowers and cut foliage, was facing challenges due to its complex organizational structure. The company, which is managed centrally, has buying subsidies and sales offices in various countries, a range of operations, and different IT systems. This complexity was increasingly impacting the company’s course of business. The company's information provision had turned into chaos with scores of Excel reports and emails complicating the management of the company. In early 2006, Fleura started looking for a Business Intelligence (BI) solution with a consolidation tool for its financial reports and a reporting tool for its buying subsidies to replace the obsolete Oracle solution it was using. The company wanted a cutting-edge product which would be easy to use, fast to implement and self-explanatory, therefore requiring no extensive training given the complex structure of its organization.

Flipkart, the largest B2B e-commerce business in India, experienced rapid growth and diversification, expanding its network of warehouses and procurement operations. This scale added to the need for Flipkart to continually upgrade its business discovery software to better serve multiple business units with new applications. As a startup, Flipkart initially used open source technology to support the launch, but soon found that open source business intelligence (BI) tools had limited functionality. Scalability was a problem and it was hard to drill down into their data to produce complex reports. Flipkart was experiencing an increasingly complex data flow from different business units—for example, inventory and supply chain.

Fondaco SGR, a leading independent money management company, was facing several challenges related to the analysis of financial data on managed funds and funds under management. The company was looking for a solution to optimize this process and automate the creation of reports for top management. The goal was to improve the overall quality of the analyses and reports produced. The company needed a solution that could provide comprehensive insights into key financial metrics across funds, performance, deviations, and risk.

France Domaine, a department of the Directorate General of Public Finances in France, manages the government property policy. It represents the interests of the government as a property owner managing assets in its stock of buildings valued at a little over €100 billion. The French Government has in the past few years undertaken a review of its property policy and made a complete study of its stock of buildings and property assets. This efficiency drive is based partly on modernising practices controlling the sale of Government buildings. It also involves ensuring more effective management of buildings and their occupancy. This in turn entails implementation of notional rents internal to Government, leases between France Domaine and ministry departments or other public sector operators, and commitments to real estate performance objectives. Co-ordinated by France Domaine and locally by Prefects who represent the state in the regions, strategic plans make it possible to establish the property requirements of the public sector for the ensuing financial years. It also aims to implement a consistent and rational nationwide property policy.

FRIMO Group, a world leader in the development and manufacture of production systems for quality plastic components, faced several challenges. They had a complex infrastructure that included CRM and project management systems based on SQL Server and SAP. They needed to visualize and analyze sales data from CRM while taking into account complex access rules. They also needed to evaluate and analyze SAP FI-CO-PS. The solution had to be implemented internationally at 10 sites as well as in agency operations.

FrontPoint Security, a leading provider of self-installed wireless home security systems in North America, was experiencing rapid growth. This growth trajectory was outpacing the capabilities of its existing Business Intelligence (BI) solution, which was unable to provide employees with the timely insights they required. This resulted in backlogging, inefficient reporting processes, and an inability to make timely decisions. The company needed a solution that could provide insights on how customers were using their systems, customer satisfaction, and the effectiveness of the company’s marketing practices. At a higher level, the management team needed answers from its data that spanned across multiple business systems so that decisions could be made allowing the business to keep up with the high growth environment.

Fullerton India, a financial services company, faced the challenge of acquiring profitable customers. The company needed a tool that could profile, verify, and flag delinquent customers early in the loan lifecycle to ensure profitability and growth. The tool had to be scalable to handle increasing data volume and complexity, flexible enough to allow for additional KPIs and defining customized business rules. It also needed to integrate data across sources and accurately display the same for analysis across verticals, like RISK, COLLECTION, FINCON, BUSINESS PLANNING. The company required quick reports to meet its dynamic requirements and consolidate data from multiple systems and present it in an easy-to-understand format.

Fundesem Business School, a Spain-based institution with over 40 years of experience, faced a challenge in its growing student population, especially from abroad. The school needed to react faster and have key figures available on a daily basis to make decisions. The course of marketing campaigns was determined according to certain results indicators. Fundesem is figures-orientated and their entire business strategy is focused on this. They needed a tool that would provide them with turnover metrics within a day, rather than a week, which is what it used to take. The school wanted indicators to provide a performance evaluation by department as well as in line with the school’s overall strategy. From a strategic point of view, the challenge consisted in defining key indicators that would ensure that actions aligned with the school’s business strategy. And finally, Fundesem required a solution that was technically easy to use.

Furninova, a leading manufacturer of household indoor furniture, was facing challenges with its existing manufacturing planning system (MPS). The system, which was used to manage all aspects of production, had limited capabilities to provide sales or statistical reporting. This was causing delays in generating reports across multiple functional areas of the business and affecting the accuracy and timeliness of analysis, which in turn was impacting business decisions. The company needed a tool that could capture information from various systems and provide quick views, analysis and on-the-fly reports. Management needed this capability to anticipate customer trends and make better and more informed decisions.

Gatorade de Mexico, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, Inc., was facing challenges in accessing real-time sales data to proactively respond to market changes. The company was using MicroStrategy for Business Intelligence (BI) and reporting, but the tool’s complexity made it difficult for the sales support team to easily access and analyze the real-time data they needed. Producing reports could take anywhere from 40 minutes for basic sales performance reports to four hours for more strategic sales analysis. The business users needed to engage a sales support analyst to run multiple MicroStrategy reports, export them to Excel, and then map, update and consolidate the data to get the answers they needed. Since MicroStrategy only refreshed on a daily basis, the information was outdated and the high level of manual manipulation increased the margin of error.