Power from knowledge: Business intelligence solutions give Metropolitan the edge

Metropolitan Retail has transformed its vision of an intelligent organisation into reality through the extensive application of Cognos business intelligence tools coupled with focused management training. The company now benefits from extended functionality and improved usage of its BI applications, achieved with the assistance of specialist BI solution provider Synergy Computing.

A household name, Metropolitan Retail provides life assurance and risk services to the South African consumer market. Technology plays an important role in helping the company to effectively provide personal service to each of its hundreds of thousands of customers, while its business intelligence systems are leveraged to provide various management information reports ranging from financials to daily operational measures.

A company that strives to maintain a leading position within the insurance industry, Metropolitan identified the potential benefits of business intelligence solutions at an early stage, implementing Cognos Impromptu, Enterprise Server, and PowerPlay Web Explorer some five years ago. More recently, with Synergy Computing as a joint implementation partner Metropolitan Retail selected Cognos' KPI Business Pack, enabling company executives to monitor their business performance by linking key performance indicators (KPIs) directly with business strategy.

Simultaneously, the organisation had a requirement for educational services to improve management understanding and usage of its BI applications, and thereby improve the return on its investment. It further engaged Synergy as a strategic partner to assist it to realise this vision efficiently and cost effectively.

Metropolitan Retail has come a long way since the early days of its BI investment, says Gail van Beest, Project Public Relations and Training Officer at Metropolitan Life. "Currently we have some 300 active users, taking advantage of over 20 business intelligence applications developed in Cognos, which contain various types of cubes with a variety of management information ranging from financials to detail operational measures. These users are spread across SA, Namibia, Lesotho and Botswana."

Having seen the benefits of accurate and timeous reporting, Metropolitan set about taking information distribution and access to the next level, launching an initiative called SharpShift in 2002. The main aim of SharpShift is to deliver the right information to the right people, in the right format at the right time.

Explains Susan Delport, Manager of Decision Support: "This included identifying relevant business measures, prioritising these and incrementally delivering management information to address specific business problems."

One of the increments was the implementation of a 'digital dashboard' for the Retail Executive to enable it to monitor various business indicators easily. "The division is responsible for developing business performance measures and effective management of financial reporting. With Synergy's assistance, it was agreed that the best tool for actively monitoring Retail's strategic business was to implement Cognos' KPI Business Pack. However, it has become apparent that the KPI Business Pack's enhanced version now named Metrics Manager will now best suit Metropolitan's requirments which we aim to implement mid-2004," says Mike McDougall, Head of Actuarial Research & Management Information (ARMI).

Cognos Metrics Manager will enable Metropolitan Retail to monitor its business performance by linking KPIs directly with business strategy, says Andrew Connold, MD of Synergy Computing. "Metrics Manager will provide a high level overview to executives and senior management, of where targets are being achieved and where not, specifically in the production environment."

During this project, Metropolitan Retail noted the necessity for training and support to help the company get the maximum return from its BI investment; Van Beest notes that communication, support and training are critical components of any successful business intelligence implementation.

She says many users were struggling to get to grips with PowerPlay Web Explorer, as training was not part of the initial implementation. This was partially owing to cost constraints with the initial rollout project some five years ago.

"Synergy played an important role in assisting us to keep our costs down by customising a Train-the-Trainer course, specifically for Metropolitan Retail in-house trainers. They also worked in partnership with us in developing a user and instructor manual specifically customised around Metropolitan's requirements. We successfully trained over 200 users from more than 60 regions during the months of July and August 2003," Van Beest says.

"We have established that on-going training, communication and regular information updates are essential within Metropolitan Retail, not just on the functionality provided by the Cognos tools, but also to ensure that our users understand the information he or she is looking at and how best to use the information in managing their business."

Following the success that Synergy has helped Metropolitan achieve with its Cognos tools, the company anticipates further exciting developments throughout 2004 including upgrading of its KPI Business Pack to Cognos Metrics Manager and an upgrade of its Cognos Enterprise Server.

"Our primary focus will be on enhancing the information that we have delivered to date to better manage our business, as well as continue to empower our clients by delivering new and relevant information to them." concludes Van Beest.