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Performance Driven Enterprise
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Solution
Visibility
Business Intelligence Analyzers
Solution Benefits
VISIBILITY Business Intelligence
Analyzer Solutions allow decision makers to access the
business information needed to make timely and informed
decisions.
Analyzer solutions can be deployed at either or both the
department and enterprise level.
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Customer Background
A $30 million blended ETO and repetitive manufacturing
enterprise, providing systems and components to the
telecommunications industry, was struggling with a means to
analyze its own effectiveness as a business. The company,
through the implementation of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs),
needed to measure its cash management and margins in two
product areas; specifically, low volume, engineering
intensive project orders and high volume, repetitive sales. |
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Key Challenges
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Deviations in cash flow forecast
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No standard method to perform
margin analysis
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Financials on decentralized
spreadsheets
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Inconsistent and inaccurate
reports
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Delayed data reporting
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Management lost confidence in
reports
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Increased manpower to resolve
report inaccuracies
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Detailed Challenges
Companies are embracing KPIs as measurements of the health
of their business. Implementing KPIs have the measurable
benefits of streamlining operations, increasing customer
satisfaction, increasing revenues, reducing costs, etc.
The inherent problem with calculating these measurements is
that the data is often derived from several sources and the
inability to easily access the information has driven many
managers to maintain their own set of numbers. Too often,
the information that corporations believe to be indicative
of their business is in spreadsheets. The data in the
enterprise system is disregarded, as it often can only be
accessed via the IT department who is burdened with other
priorities. The enterprise information system is ultimately
viewed as a barrier and the wealth of company information it
contains is rarely revealed.
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Solution Details
Business Intelligence - The strengths of Business
Intelligence tools are their ease of use, flexibility and
ability to provide a unified view of information. Cognos’
Impromptu® and PowerPlay®, in combination with Visibility’s
pre-configured BI solutions, provide easy access to
enterprise information specifically designed for managers.
VISIBILITY Data Cubes - Visibility developed data cubes
in the areas of sales, accounts receivable and accounts
payable to assist the customer in measuring KPIs important
for their business. Specifically, analyzing its cash flow
and margin analysis for project orders and volume sales.
Using the data cubes, in conjunction with Cognos PowerPlay,
to analyze the data in the VISIBILITY system revealed that
the margin on the project orders was far greater than that
on the volume sales. Valuable monetary and human resources
were being utilized to support a business that was costing
the customer far more money than the margin could
realistically support.
The VISIBILITY ERP system had been the central
repository for this data all along. The data cubes that were
built against the VISIBILITY database held this information
that was quickly turned into knowledge. The knowledge
gathered by the management team through KPIs enabled
improved decision making. They used performance management
to measure success factors across several facets of their
organization with Projects, Labor and Inventory Management
data cubes.
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