Comparex Africa`s Customer Oriented Applications (COA) division was named the Cognos South Africa Best Solution Provider 2001 at the Cognos Enterprise User Conference in Johannesburg late last year.
The company was recognised for its work at petroleum giant Sasol, integrating the HR data warehouse with Cognos`s Web-based business intelligence analysis and reporting tools that help Sasol centrally monitor and administer its employment equity and reward programmes throughout its operational regions.
Cognos SA MD Peter Gerson says the award, together with Comparex Africa COA` s position as a Cognos Premier Partner, reaffirms the division`s leadership in the Cognos solutions market in SA.
"The high standard achieved by Comparex Africa COA speaks volumes about its ability to implement complex business intelligence solutions, and we congratulate the COA team for a job well done."
Work began in 2000 on a three-phase, multimillion-rand human resources data warehouse and business intelligence project at Sasol with the purpose of tracking its diversity strategy to manage its equal opportunity programme across all business units. The data warehouse also allows Sasol to perform dimensional analyses of salaries and facilitate manpower planning across all the business units of the group.
"The Cognos suite of products was chosen for its Web-enabled front-end, which makes it possible to deliver business intelligence solutions to the desktops of a much wider audience without the maintenance overburden of traditional client/server business intelligence tools," says Sasol HR information manager Abrie Burger, who gave a keynote address praising the Comparex solution at the awards presentation.
"Sasol places a high emphasis on job equality and equal opportunity throughout all organisational levels, and this project has helped us measurably deliver on this policy."
The warehouse uses Ascential`s SapStage module to link Ascential`s DataStage extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) software with Sasol`s SAP R/3 back-end, the first integration of its kind in SA. The SAP data is integrated with human resources information from other business units (with different architectures) and exploited using the Cognos Web suite of tools. Cognos Upfront was used as the portal to drive the BI components.
"As a Cognos Premier Partner we have set our goal at becoming the leading proponent of Cognos solutions in the country, and service the network of Cognos resellers, partners and customers in the region with professional training, maintenance and support resources as required," says Comparex Africa COA managing executive Rodney Hood.
"We`ve consistently met these targets for over five years, in the process building the largest dedicated business intelligence team of its kind - with over 100 consultants nationwide - in the country. This achievement is indicative of our growth and the dedication of our professionals, and we hope to continue giving our customers more of the same in years to come."
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