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Users tout BI benefits
By Michael MacMillan
IT World
Canada
The day after it was learned that a cow infected
with mad cow disease had been discovered in
Alberta, officials at Cara Business Operations
Ltd.
watched as sales at its Harvey's fast food
restaurants dropped by eight per cent.
"Two days later it was zero per cent impact, and
four days later sales went up," said Edward
Kress, director of new business development at
ThinkNet Inc. "Using business intelligence, they
were able to watch the reaction and not
over-respond to the hype."
Kress pointed to this as one example of the
benefits of business intelligence (BI) software
on Wednesday while speaking at the BI/ERP
Software
Solutions show in Toronto. The day-long event
featured several users who explained how they
were able to get value from their software
investments.
Kress explained how ThinkNet, using SQL Server
and Microsoft Analysis products, as well as
ThinkNet's proprietary dashboard interface,
helped
Harvey's restaurants better tap into sales data
across its 337 restaurants. Previously, each
store manager faxed, phoned or e-mailed in
Excel spreadsheet data. Managers then pieced
together the total data during a weekly meeting.
"They only had top-line sales numbers
by location and by day, not by individual
transaction," Kress said.
Today, BI links are tied into point-of-sale
(POS) activity at every store register, meaning
that Harvey's can now deduce, for example, how
much ketchup is used on a particular burger, by
who and how often — in real time.
Kress recommended that those new to technology
start their projects in small, incremental
bites, and to prepare for the unpredictable
effects that
go hand-in-hand with new data.
All (of Harvey's) procedures up to then now had
to change, because they had information
available that they never had before," he said,
adding
that such change is often difficult.
Black Photo Corp., which oversees a nation-wide
chain of camera retail stores, recently
partnered with Montreal-based Intellera to
install
a Cognos Inc.-based BI package. Today, Roy
Short, director of IS and technology at the
company, said he's able to extract data from his
AS/400 system on a daily basis.
"We realized a return of investment of 2,000 per
cent within six months," Short said, mainly
around the shortened time it took to provide
sales
information to its partner vendors and
suppliers. "The challenge was no one believed
(those numbers)."
He warned attendees that the process of
"cleaning up" data — eliminating duplication,
coding everything in a standard fashion — in
preparation
for rolling out BI is one of the most
challenging aspects. "I can't stress it enough,"
he added.
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