Managers at Orthomedics, an importer and distributor of medical products, can now concentrate strictly on business issues, without spending valuable time looking for information and debating the numbers. This is thanks to the implementation of business intelligence and data analysis software from QlikView South Africa.
Having implemented their second ERP system in a relatively short period of time, Orthomedics had hoped that their reporting problems would be resolved. It soon became apparent that this was not to be. "ERP systems are good at processing and storing information, but provide little in the way of analysis and this is where QlikView came in. QlikView provided the key which enabled us to unlock the value stored in our information systems", says Neil Verdal-Austin, Financial Director of Orthomedics.
"Our previous reporting systems saw our managers spending time sorting out many IT issues rather than analyzing the data. Other problems included the time taken to retrieve the information and distribute reports. Orthomedics operates throughout South Africa as well as in several Southern African countries and it has a large and widespread salesforce," explains Verdal-Austin, "therefore distributing accurate information timeously is critical for us. We had reached a point were we needed to generate over 150 sales analysis reports a day to cover our various requirements."
"QlikView replaces all these reports with a single Sales Data Model. Apart from the fact that it is much simpler to manage, our users now have easy access to the information they need and manipulate it as required - they don`t need to ask an IT person for assistance. This has changed the way in which we run our business and we now also use QlikView in our distribution, financial and HR departments," he adds.
Further evidence of the success of this project can be seen in the enthusiasm of the employees to use the software. The system is simple to understand and users are trained in under two hours. "Initially Orthomedics was cautious of spending money on yet another business intelligence implementation, and so the pilot project, which ran in November 2003 in Cape Town, comprised only eight people from various departments. The pilot was due to run for a month, but within a week, there was a demand for further licences and we started to rollout the software to the entire company," says Davide Hanan, Managing Director of QlikView South Africa.
Another benefit attributed to the use of QlikView is that the software has highlighted certain problems within the business which needed to be addressed. For example, stock classification and pricing discrepancies were isolated and corrected immediately.
"QlikView has made us all Corporate Performance Managers within our own areas of responsibility. Evidence of this can be seen in the Strategy and Directors` meetings, where we now spend time discussing the actual business rather than questioning the integrity around the sales figures," says Verdal-Austin.
"When you have a situation where eight directors are saving two hours each at weekly meetings, it`s easy to see where your ROI is and how quickly the software pays for itself," says Hanan.
Looking forward, Orthomedics is planning to double its QlikView licences to over 100 to further increase accessibility to much-needed information.
"There is immense satisfaction in empowering people to make their own decisions based on the information available to them, and thus to control their own destiny - that is what QlikView did for us," concludes Verdal-Austin.
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QlikView South Africa is the South African representative and distributor for QlikTech, the Swedish developer of QlikView business intelligence and data analytics software. QlikView is an industry-changing application that is dramatically easier to deploy and use than traditional Business Intelligence technology. It provides instant, in-memory manipulation of massive datasets on low cost hardware, allowing affordable and widespread deployment of highly sophisticated analytic applications. QlikView South Africa also provides consulting and implementation services to simplify business analysis and to connect more people at all levels in an organisation to the information they need.
For more information about QlikView South Africa, visit www.qlikview.co.za.
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