Nanyang Technological University (NTU) was facing challenges in tracking data over the “student lifecycle” from the application and admissions phase to post-graduation performance. The existing static data analysis made ad hoc, real-time reporting difficult. The university was required to provide reports to the Board of Trustees and Ministry of Education. The process of pulling all this information together was tedious, time-consuming and involved a lot of manual effort. The IT department struggled with improving the delivery of the information, but developing reports using NTU’s existing application systems was not easy and took a large amount of effort. The administrative staff needed to use Excel spreadsheets on this outdated data extensively to meet their reporting requirements. These issues often hindered users from acquiring sufficient data to perform trend analysis for decision making.

Nationwide Commercial, a division of Nationwide Building Society, faced the increasing challenge of analysing millions of rows of “big data” about its loans portfolio. The division wanted a holistic view of key strategic data and metrics from a number of sources, including its ProMS property risk management system. The aim was to maximise investment returns and portfolio performance, while reducing operational risk and improving ease of compliance. By improving the quality and speed with which it can answer queries or produce on-demand reports, Nationwide Commercial can assess the characteristics and relationships of its commercial loan book more effectively.

CSG Het Noordik, a broad-based combined school in the Netherlands, was looking to introduce a management information platform to support its quality assurance program. The school had a reputation for being good, but it lacked a system to measure and quantify its performance. The school's approach to educational quality and quality assurance was reactive, which is common in the educational sector due to the focus on the primary process of teaching. The school wanted to implement a quality assurance system that was proactive rather than reactive. They wanted to transform data into steering information for fast and effective action. For example, statistical data plays a crucial role during discussions with individual teachers, chain partners, and the education authority.

The North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust serves a diverse and, in places, highly dependent population of approximately 250,000 people. In a challenging time for budgets in the NHS it is vital that resources are used as effectively as possible, whilst continuing to improve the patient experience and the care offered. To help meet that challenge, the Trust initiated an improvement programme. After an initial review, agreement on the need to introduce new measuring tools was reached towards the end of 2009 – with a desire to find a business intelligence tool that made it possible to easily analyse and understand the performance of different parts of the trust.

PerfectServe, a provider of physician contact and patient care communication services, was facing challenges in managing the IT needs of its fast-growing organization. The company was growing at a rate of 50% each year since 2000. They needed a solution that would empower their clients to develop customized data reports without relying on PerfectServe's IT staff. Additionally, they wanted to increase the depth and functionality of their data reports. PerfectServe delivers standard reporting on contact events to its hospital clients typically on a monthly basis. The addition of a “self-serve” business intelligence reporting tool would be a major enhancement for clients as well as a benefit to its own operational productivity.

PRIMAGAS, a utility company with regional headquarters in Krefeld, Dresden, and Würzburg, was facing challenges in analyzing Oracle data for its subsidiary. The data was analyzed by manual reports in Excel, which was a time-consuming process. The company was under high pressure due to its business operations. The parent company was using another tool which was not suitable for PRIMAGAS's business. The company was dealing with large quantities of data.

Radiometer, a pioneer and international market leader for blood gas analyzers, was facing increasing cost pressures and needed to optimize its corporate efficiency. The company was using a complex Excel solution with numerous macros for data evaluation. This procedure was not only error-prone and complex, but it was also difficult to use. In addition, the data volume became too large for such a solution to reliably and quickly handle the evaluations. The company considered adopting an OLAP-based business intelligence solution that was already in use at the parent company in Denmark. However, it quickly became clear that this system also could not satisfy the requirements of Radiometer in Germany.

Ramkrishna Forgings Limited (RKFL), a leading manufacturer and supplier of open and closed die forgings, was facing challenges in improving the performance and efficiency of large-scale data analysis and integrating data from multiple sources effectively. The company had implemented SAP in 2010 to enhance operational philosophy. However, after two years of using the SAP infrastructure, the IT team at RKFL felt that the tools reporting and analytics lacked flexibility and performance to deal with large data volumes from SAP and other non-SAP data sources. Managers used to pull together SAP-reports and analysis using Microsoft Excel, often resulting in inconsistent and incomplete reports. The organization wanted a solution that would be intuitive and simple to use, integrate with the existing SAP applications, deliver deep data analysis capabilities in real-time, and could be accessed anytime using popular mobile devices.

RS Components, as part of the global Electrocomponents PLC group, operates over a large geographical footprint. With the components business being fiercely competitive, the management team considered it mission-critical to be able to make business decisions swiftly. However, their existing decision support system was achieved through the manual consolidation of data directly from their ERP and CRM application systems (JD Edwards and Pivotal). This meant that they were spending too much time on data consolidation before any analysis could be made, delaying important decisions as a result. To tackle this, RS Components realized it needed a management tool or system that could provide strategic insights on the performance of its business across all functions. The system should be able to provide data for their Key Performance Matrixes, and assist management with their strategic discussions thereby improving their decision-making process. In order to achieve this, this system should be able extract data from multiple robust and complex systems spread across a diversed geographical region to provide a common view of the business which everyone in the company could rely on.

SABMiller India had stored all of its data on Microsoft SQL Server and ran its Enterprise and Resource Planning (ERP) system on SYSPRO for its commercial business operations of Finance, Manufacturing and Sales and Distribution. All other business processes were supported by over 45 applications and as a result, the company was unable to generate reports by combining data from multiple applications. SAB Miller India needed reporting and analysis to provide the appropriate level of depth and flexibility in order to comply with statutory requirements, as well as for making crucial business decisions. The company was also dealing with reporting challenges. The team were pulling together multiple data sources into one report, which was a time consuming process, and an inaccurate method for reporting.

Schenker España, a leading Spanish shipping company and a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn (DB) Schenker, was in need of a global information analysis system that could be deployed in the shortest time possible. The company uses diverse technology platforms, each with corporate applications for each specific business area, and an SAP/R3 enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for financial and logistics management. These platforms include Windows, Citrix, VMWare, Oracle, and various UNIX/Linux-based systems. The company had evaluated various business intelligence (BI) tools and began to develop a pilot project with Business Objects, though this never became a reality. In addition, it had spent most of its available resources in the early stages.

TEAM Computers, a leading IT Infrastructure Solution provider in India, was looking to leverage its vast pool of data to support its ambitious growth plans. The company wanted to proactively manage its day-to-day business operations to maximize revenue. The challenge was to find a solution that could provide a unified view of data pulled from multiple sources, improve performance, and offer better control over productivity.

ThiemeMeulenhoff, one of the three largest educational publishers in the Netherlands, was facing several challenges. The company needed to allow management access to the latest information to gauge performance and allow staff to select and interpret data without the requirement for IT. They also needed to upgrade their reporting to comply with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and transition from a paper-based to a digital information flow. The company was also implementing a timesheet system that still needed a report module. They had the option of choosing between a traditional system, which produced reams of paper lists on a daily, weekly and monthly basis – heavily supported by their IT department – or a more modern Business Intelligence (BI) solution.

Tulikivi Corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of heat-retaining fireplaces, adopted a new, product group-based strategy. In line with the new strategy, the company wanted to analyse business information more efficiently. Previously, meetings dragged on while waiting for information, and in many cases the information received was not the information that was agreed on. Further challenges included slow reporting and software, which resulted in waiting for analyses. In the old days, it was a challenge to compile reports manually quickly enough. The software was too slow and they had to wait for analyses. Meetings dragged on and the reports that were produced did not always meet the actual need. Distribution of reports was another problem.

The Réunion Southern Regional Hospital was facing challenges in accessing data from numerous sources and systems. They were using simple single-database query tools which were insufficient to allow users to efficiently access all data. The hospital needed a solution that could integrate data from various different sources and systems, and provide instant access to greater amounts of information in the form of visually rich interactive dashboards, and reports. They also needed a solution that could deliver greater independence and self-sufficiency for users.

Purity Life Health Products LP, a leading distributor of natural health products in Canada, was facing challenges with its legacy system for business data analysis. The system was cumbersome and only a few employees had access to useful and timely data. This lack of data accessibility and transparency was hindering work efficiency and visibility into the business. The company needed a solution that would liberate its data and make it accessible to more people within the organization.

Direct Relief, a global humanitarian aid organization, faced a significant challenge in managing its supply chain. The unpredictable nature of world events and the receipt of products from donors made it difficult to plan and execute logistics efficiently. Furthermore, the organization had to deal with medical products with expiration dates stored in warehouses worldwide. The complexities of shipping times and customs protocols posed a risk of these products being wasted unless Direct Relief could move quickly and maintain full visibility of their supply chain. The data essential for this agility and visibility was trapped in their SAP system, making it inaccessible for effective decision-making.

AFAS Software, a fast-growing ERP software provider, was looking to extend the benefits of enterprise-ready Business Intelligence (BI) to the more than 740,000 users of the AFAS ERP suite. The company wanted to go beyond modernizing business practices and advance to innovation by letting customers see the whole story hidden in their data.