BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Case studies

Siemens Security Products

“[Infozone was] easy to work with, even for us who are a large and complex organization with a variety of requirements on procedures and system demands.” – John Thacker, Siemens

CASE STUDIES

John Thacker is the Quality & Support Services Manager for

Siemens Security Products with headquarters in Solna,

Sweden. This unit of Siemens is known for its innovative

security solutions in the areas of access control, integrated

security systems, video surveillance and alarms. This includes

both hardware and software.

Responsible for quality and support services, John and his team

are given the task to streamline business solutions, reporting,

and finding solutions that enable the content of the business

systems to be more easily accessible and much more user

friendly. John decided on a QlikView solution because getting

the sales figures from the business system got very complicated

and time consuming.

The first step in his QlikView solution was an application for

analysis of sales. In total, about 2,300 different products were

distributed over the product areas of access control, integrated

security systems and video surveillance.

The second step in his QlikView solution was a “logistics cockpit”,

an application that provides a comprehensive overview of the

logistical situation. It shows the inventory levels and gives a

forecast of expected sales. An important part of this feature is

that you can see early on which products are outside the

expected; for example having abnormally high or low stock levels.

“Previously we worked in complex Excel spreadsheets, where we got the numbers from the system once a month. Today the numbers are delivered close to real time.”

“The major benefit in the QlikView solution is that we got a

much higher visibility of the information. Instead of looking

through Excel spreadsheets for abnormalities a month later,

we have the opportunity to see deviations and warning signals

immediately. We see it in at the product level, geographic level,

customer level and we can see and follow how the margins

develop. This gives us the opportunity to act much faster and

more efficiently.”

“The partnership with Infozone has been fantastic. They are easy to

work with, even for us who are a large and complex organization

with a variety of requirements on procedures and system demands.

But Infozone was extremely flexible and resolved all problems as

they appeared. They quickly noticed what we needed and supplied

us with good arguments and solutions.”

“Now we have quick access to all of our figures that we can twist

and turn to obtain critical business information. We can then present

it in an educational way so that what is important in the information

easily becomes available. And everything is happening in real time.

An extra bonus is that we can decrease the number of expensive

licenses to the business system because QlikView solves a lot of

the employees’ needs at a significantly lower cost.”

Office Depot

We have been working with QlikView for quite some time without exploiting the possibilities to the fullest. It was mostly a reporting tool to export information to Excel spreadsheets. This summer, Infozone came into the picture and helped us to utilize the benefits of QlikView, both with new ideas and by bringing structure to our information.This has given us the ability to slice the numbers and break the numeric content down to each individual order and invoice. It has also made it possible to analyze our sales in detail in every sales channel, product area and by customer, and to also measure sales growth over time. – Jan Gustafsson, Office Depot

CASE STUDIES

Jan Gustafsson is chief operating officer at the office

specialist retail chain, Office Depot, Sweden.

The company is a result of Office Depot’s acquisition of Frans

Svanströms & CO and AGE Kontor & Data AB. As project man-

ager, Jan is responsible for finding good tools for measuring

the business. Not only do the shops, which constitute one third

of the business, need to be measured, but other parts of the

company’s sales that come from sales via customer service,

internal sales, e-commerce and the sales force also need to

be measured. The tools are used by corporate management

centrally and also by store managers, product managers, sales

management and sales staff.

For store managers, it has become possible to see how much

the store is selling compared to other stores and follow the

products’ and customers’ profitability. Even if the store manager

just uses the tool for 15-20 minutes a week, it quickly provides

a good picture of the situation and where there are possibilities

for improvements. This is important because new trends are

also developing in office supply stores. For example, paper

consumption is steadily decreasing year by year even though

it may only be by a small percentage each year. In turn, this

means that the use of binders and similar products also

decreases. Instead, the “fancier” office products are increasing,

the ones that make the office more pleasant and efficient.

“The Qlikview tool helps us to keep track of major customers

and their habits, and also assists in monitoring campaigns and

what the results were. In this way, we can optimize the selection

in the store and customize our inventory according to demand.”

Every night, the database, which is the basis for all analyses

of the business, is updated so that the figures are basically

presented to the organization close to real-time. The most

important thing we have achieved is that we do not have to

run Excel everywhere and everyone can get the figures they

need directly, fast and hassle-free. Regarding the follow-up of

products to check campaign results and pricing strategies, the

product managers now have a new favorite tool.

“It is increasingly important to compare the sales of the different

products in different channels. Here, we have the opportunity

to look at the individual order line to get the most interesting

information. The information that is retrieved gives rise to

numerous speculations, and over the long-term, new approaches.

That may be why some products are only sold through the

website while others are sold online, and how discount rates

impact sales and earnings.”

“The cooperation with Infozone has proceeded extremely well.

They have been responsive, flexible and come up with great

ideas that show that they have extensive experience in helping

to process interesting figures and large volumes of data. They

have also warned us when we have wanted to do something

that would not work as well. The shops are very enthusiastic

and think we have found a fantastic tool. Some have really

embraced the possibilities and developed very powerful

decision- making documentation. There are also quick-guides

that make it easy to start using the tool and we also travel

around and provide support to users in the regions and in the

stores,” concludes Jan.

Phone 855 IZI-QLIK (855 494-7545) • E-mail info@infozoneus.comWebsite www.infozoneus.com