Johannesburg, 03 Sep 2018
Overview
Kyocera Document Solutions, forming one of Kyocera's businesses worldwide, researches and develops Kyocera monochrome and colour printers, multifunctional products, wide format devices, intelligent software solutions, as well as parts and supplies.
Headquartered in Midrand, Kyocera Document Solutions South Africa is a country level subsidiary of Kyocera Document Solutions and is responsible for the sales and marketing of Kyocera printers and document solutions throughout southern Africa.
Kyocera Document Solutions South Africa is renowned for its tailor-made document solutions that provide a perfect blend of premium products, software solutions and professional services that increase an organisation's workflow efficiency, enhance employee productivity, minimise environmental impact and significantly reduce operating costs.
A key differentiator for the Kyocera brand is the primary focus on overall value as opposed to only considering the initial acquisition price.
Its solutions portfolio and MDS division help customers to reduce costs and environmental impact at the same time as improving the efficiency and reliability of common business processes.
Kyocera pursues unrivalled innovation, professional service excellence and offers environmentally friendly document solutions that make a significant difference to businesses.
Challenges
Kyocera operates on multiple systems, with innumerable internal and external data inputs. According to Ian Dury, Business Process Manager at Kyocera Document Solutions South Africa, this leads to limited data access and disparate data views.
"Only a few people have access to the data that they work on. Those that don't have access can't see the big picture," confirms Dury. As a result, the connection between departments was tenuous and the understanding of how they correlate with each other limited. From decision-making to reporting, every function that relies on data is made more challenging in this environment.
Solutions
Kyocera has been using Qlik products for 12 years. For 11 of those years, it used QlikView. The company has now been on Qlik Sense for about one year.
Having recently moved onto a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, Kyocera felt that Qlik Sense was the right tool to help the business gain greater insights from its data. "Throughout this process, my focus has been to consider improvements in KPIs for all departments, company-wide," said Dury.
"From what I've seen, the platform effectively allows for management by Qlik. We don't have to have a meeting to evaluate how staff are doing or call them to get a report; it's all there, on the tool."
With organisation-wide acceptance of the tool, a number of Kyocera staff have attended the Qlik Sense training course. "They use the data given, then they create their own apps," adds Dury. "The process to develop is becoming faster all the time, and the staff know what mindset we're going for."
Although some change management was required in the move from QlikView to Qlik Sense, the Kyocera team is now privy to a platform that updates every 15 minutes, rather than once a day. This offers greater productivity and better decision-making power.
Benefits
Dury confirms the company now operates according to the saying: "I'll check on Qlik." It is the business' foremost decision-making tool, used to: determine what stock is coming in from Europe and when it will arrive; stock management; promotions, guided by reliable information from logistics so the marketing team can make sound decisions; sales based on real information; and manage how changes in one department can impact another.
While the company has experienced many benefits from the Qlik implementation over the years, there are some that stand out for Dury. As the business goes through the harrowing auditing process annually, its auditors would often take issue with the recognition of revenue for its services base.
"We'd routinely collect meter readings and bill according to the readings taken, but the business had no idea what the target number was that it should be collecting. We may have gotten a thousand, but how many were we supposed to get? If every single meter is not billed for, it's a service that's being provided at a zero cost," recalls Dury.
With Qlik, Kyocera developed an app that stores historical billing per month, per machine and details whether a machine is currently on contract or active. "Now we had a number to work towards. We can focus on the machines that hadn't been billed within the last six months. Through the use of this app, we billed an estimated additional five millions clicks, and that elevated number has remained the constant.
"This is an app that actually drove action. We saw 4 000-odd machines; we realised some were inactive, even though (according to the system) they were active. We are now far more capable to manage all of the machines accurately, bill accordingly, and increase activity."
As such, the app continues to deliver return on investment. "In the first month we got our money back, and now the auditors understand the value, and are happy," Dury adds.
Implementation advice
Before any new implementations are considered, Dury asks the team why it's being considered. "We want to build apps that drive action. That's what we've achieved and it's definitely a tool that I would recommend to others."
Future
Kyocera will be considering Qlik NPrinting in the future. "We're also looking to allow partners to login and view the data available. This was one of the main reasons we went with Qlik Sense; because you can embed it via outframing," concludes Dury.
Solution overview
Customer name: Kyocera Document Solutions South Africa
Industry: Office automation, document solutions, BPM, ECM, BPA
Function: 14 Qlik Sense applications, within: service, finance, logistics, marketing and sales
Geography: Johannesburg, South Africa (operating country-wide)
Challenges: Limited access to data led to a lack of cohesion, strategical limitations and reporting/analytical challenges
Solution: About 12 years ago, Kyocera implemented QlikView. One year ago, it began the process of moving to Qlik Sense.
Benefits:
* Cohesion between departments
* Higher data visibility
* Greater efficiency and productivity
* More accurate tracking and billing
* Reliable data regarding the activity or inactivity of machines
* Data to substantiate services ROI
* More effective stock management
* Better planning and strategic direction
Data sources: Excel reports, data drawn from data centre in The Netherlands, AS400, no conversion to visualisation; if that was required, it had to be done manually.
Three months to convert QlikView to Qlik Sense, retaining one QlikView licence for historical data access.
Return on investment: One month to recoup entire project cost for the machine tracking and billing app.
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