Microland, a provider of ITSM services, was looking for a way to differentiate itself in the crowded ITSM market. The company wanted to provide its customers with transparency into their ITSM landscapes and deliver a platform that was powerful but easy to use. Many of Microland's customers reported that despite having all the reporting tools they could think of, they still lacked visibility into their ITSM analytics. They were running projects for six months but still had no useful KPIs and did not know what was happening with their ITSM.

EuroMaint, a leading maintenance solution provider for vehicles in the Swedish rail industry, was facing challenges in reviewing its workflow and synchronizing resources across 20 different applications for equipment support delivery. The company was heavily dependent on IT specialists for custom report development, which was not only costly but also resulted in long turnaround times. They needed an easy-to-use and intuitive analysis solution that could provide an integrated view into operations, bringing together financial, staffing, and operational data.

ACI Consult, a member of the Automobile Club d’Italia (ACI) group, was originally founded to handle ACI operations in the area of transport engineering. Since 2003, the company has been responsible for designing, developing and creating innovative traffic-control services, regional and environmental services, urban furnishings and lowimpact technologies. Among its more innovative initiatives, ACI Consult has been involved in ACITRAFF, a project intended to provide a great many regional bodies with targeted traffic reports in order to analyze traffic patterns and plan infrastructure projects. ACITRAFF monitors traffic flows and uses sensors positioned along the main roadways in order to gather data on the number of vehicles, their speed, their size and traffic congestion, so as to provide accurate, up-to-date traffic information. The ACITRAFF architecture is comprised of peripherals, including active and passive optical sensors, that communicate with one or more dataprocessing centers using a variety of communication networks (phone, cable, radio, GSM, GPRS, etc.). The system gathers data on an ongoing basis and sends it to a central database, which is then used for studies and subsequent traffic planning.

Aditya Birla Minacs, a business process outsourcing (BPO) solutions provider, faced increased competition in the outsourcing market. The company needed to deliver on its promise of ‘timely reporting of results at virtually every stage of the customer relationship lifecycle’ for their clients. This required empowering their frontline team with tools that would enable them to make quicker, faster, and informed decisions. The company had deployed multiple systems across regions for its key operations, each with its own reporting mechanism. Consequently, cross-functional analysis was non-existent. The executive team found the process cumbersome, and weren’t sure of the reliability and accuracy of these reports.

ADO Gardinenwerke, a leading manufacturer of drape material and decorative fabric in Germany, was facing challenges with its existing business intelligence tool integrated in the ERP system. The tool was unable to handle the high volume of data that needed to be analyzed for ADO’s sophisticated reporting system. Questions such as sales trends for specific customers, big sellers in various countries or regions, seasonal deviations in sales, and overall sales trend for individual models could not be answered efficiently. The tool required a massive amount of in-house and outside development to create reports and answer new questions. Additionally, data consistency was not always guaranteed and there was insufficient capacity to process mass data, leading to extremely long response times. The system was also inflexible and slow, failing to provide the necessary benchmarks and reports at the level of quality required for optimum data analysis.

Advantage Pharmacy Group, a successful business in the crowded and competitive market, has always believed in the importance of centralized infrastructure and services. The group manages systems like loyalty and marketing services, group ordering and warehousing, and an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to manage financial services. However, they were missing a business discovery solution to ease the task of accessing, reporting, and analyzing data across all systems. They considered Microsoft SQL Reporting Services but found it limited and costly. They needed a solution that would unify the data for analysis, provide services to their franchisees, and bring together many disparate data sources in a single meaningful report.

Ahlers AG, a leading manufacturer of men’s clothing in Europe, faced challenges in managing and controlling production, storage, and sales due to increasing vertical integration and global competitive pressures. The company needed to provide business data quickly and precisely for decision-making. They required real-time answers to various questions related to sales trends, sales planning variations, stock quantity at the point of sale, and strategic planning of the next collection. The company initially started with a traditional OLAP tool, but it presented many shortcomings in managing high volumes of data, flexible analysis with evaluated dimensions, and speed and performance.

TNT's Corporate Audit Services Department was facing a challenge with their monthly reporting process. The department, which is responsible for internal audits worldwide, had three senior managers compiling reports for the head of the department each month. This process was time-consuming and lacked a consistent structure and uniformity, as each manager had their own method of compiling the reports. This complicated the data-merging process and the compilation of one departmental report. Additionally, all the data was manually inputted, which took a lot of time. The department was looking for a solution that would simplify the consolidation of the decentralized data, accelerate the auditing of data reliability, and present their custom-defined KPIs in a flexible and transparent manner.

Aon Asia’s management needed a clearer picture of the company’s revenue streams, starting with the ability to segment revenue by industry and product. The existing situation made it difficult to gain a true view of the company’s income across different offices in the region or to allocate the correct fees and commissions among their regional directors and country segment heads. Before using QlikView, it was all manual reporting – from regional director to country segment head to country finance. Each step in the chain required someone to manually compile the data and check for errors – a time consuming process involving a lot of following up with different parts of the business. It also lead to the possibility of different versions of data coming from more than one source. The search began for a packaged solution that could automate the process and analyze the financial streams.

Aon Groep Nederland bv, a provider of risk management, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, was facing challenges in fulfilling its Aon Client Promise, which is fully focused on creating added value and impact. The company was spending various man-hours on manually handling information requests using Microsoft Excel and predefined wordbooks in Oracle. The reports generated were sometimes lacking in uniformity. The company needed a flexible, interactive and associative BI solution that could be quickly implemented. The solution was also required to cater for the requirements of the current business landscape.

Arbinet-thexchange, Inc., a leading provider of voice and IP solutions for buying and selling telecommunications capacity, was facing a challenge of limited insight into their daily financial and operational performance. They were primarily relying on spreadsheets to calculate revenue month-to-date for decision making and for revenue forecasting. The company could not pinpoint how minutes were used, pricing of various voice services at current transaction levels, where revenue was made and lost, how traders were performing, or market trends. The requirements to gather data, download to spreadsheets and execute macros were manually intensive. While providing more insight into Arbinet’s true performance, the time required for information analysis still delayed response times to business trends.

Bainbridge International, a manufacturer and distributor of specialty products to marine, construction and recreational markets, was looking for ways to gain a competitive advantage over other companies in its industry. The company had previously utilized IT specialists Blue Rock Systems to stabilize and support its 50-user Microsoft DynamicsNAV (Navision) ERP installation. The success of that engagement led Bainbridge to approach Blue Rock Systems again about other ways to enhance its operations. Specifically, Bainbridge required a sales tool that would help the company track and increase customer spend and profit. They needed a 'finger on the pulse' solution that could provide valuable insights into customer behavior and product appeal.

BBS Food B.V., a producer of frozen and chilled convenience chicken and pork meat products, was facing challenges in tracking and tracing its entire business process. The market demanded transparent information on their entire production process, from purchasing to marinating and from cooking to packaging. Customers required insights into the origin of the raw materials used, the core temperature to which each piece of meat has been cooked, and the amount of time the production process has taken. This information was crucial for food safety and was also used for labelling products. BBS was legally required to provide information on the origin, acceptance tests, and shelf life at any given moment. The company was using Microsoft Excel and Word for data collection and reporting, which was a time-consuming and inefficient process.

The Brussels Capital Region, one of three regions in Belgium, was tasked with developing a joint budget for the eight cabinets of the Brussels Regional government and the thirteen semi-public institutes in the area. Previously, all institutes developed their own budgets. This consolidation created the need to find a solution that could simultaneously process a series of extra information flows coming from very diverse data sources. This was particularly challenging as the Cabinet was suffering a shortage of staff at the time. The Cabinet needed a solution that could fit all of the (financial) data from the various data sources, including Excel, Oracle and Access, quickly and easily into one screen.

Blyth HomeScents International (BHI) was facing challenges with its manual approach to reporting and analysis, which was inefficient and hampering the company's growth. The lack of visibility in sales performance was causing significant frustration. Multiple reports were coming from various sources, making it difficult for executives to focus on the numbers themselves. Additionally, by the time actual sales were reported for the previous month, it was too late to make necessary adjustments with suppliers or shift promotional programs. Marketing couldn't gauge the sell-through of product lines, and the company accumulated significant excess-and-obsolete (E/O) inventory. These issues were directly impacting BHI’s bottom line.

CIBER, a global IT services and system integration provider, was looking for a new software application to add to its exclusive stable of preferred software applications. The company was already a Microsoft Gold Partner and the leading Microsoft UK CRM vendor in 2008/09. However, it was looking for a tool that could be deployed at client sites in a matter of days, rather than months or years, and that would allow users to execute complex queries on huge data sets in seconds, without having to involve IT. The company was also looking for a tool that could be integrated with its existing software applications, including Sage, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics AX.

COPARTS Autoteile GmbH, a distributor of automotive parts and business services catering to repair shops in Germany and Europe, was faced with the challenge of managing its complex network between members, partners, and industry. The company needed a detailed overview of all sales, value-added services, and expenditures to provide members greater transparency of COPARTS services and leverage in negotiations with suppliers and service partners. The aim was to combine sales figures in different formats from industry, partners, and members, and compare them with the information on the different value-added services, their ranking, and expenditures of COPARTS in time-line comparisons. Previously, these figures were processed in Excel, which was time-consuming.

Crédit Agricole CIB's fixed income markets monitoring & control (FIM M&C) business unit faced the challenge of optimizing the use of reports produced by market and credit risk teams. The team needed to deploy tools to help consolidate data from various Crédit Agricole CIB risk teams. Prior to QlikView, the FIM M&C team received Microsoft Excel spreadsheets containing information on different fixed income market product lines by email. Consolidating and analyzing such data volumes was a challenge, but there was the added challenge of all the different file formats. Each product line had its own front-office and back-office system. Terms used, file formats, and information sending frequency were all different. This made it difficult for the FIM M&C because it needed to obtain a transversal and consolidated view of the data. The objective was also to compare historical data, which was difficult with the previous system.

Diakonhjemmet Sykehus, a private, non-profit hospital in Oslo, Norway, was struggling to meet regulatory reporting requirements on quality statistics. Their existing systems could only export data files that had to be manipulated within Microsoft Excel to generate basic analysis. This process was time-consuming and did not provide much visibility into the underlying data. The hospital was also facing issues with employee absenteeism and patient admittance scheduling failures. They needed a solution that could handle the complex needs of a hospital without being too costly or resource-intensive.

Dienst Stadstoezicht, an independent public service in Amsterdam, was facing fierce competition from private companies in the fields of supervision and safety. To maximize its efficiency, it decided to automate as much as possible. It scans the number plates of parked cars and checks them against a database to determine whether the owners have a parking permit. This procedure also generates information about payment patterns in the various neighborhoods. However, the organization had six databases that were not linked, leading to considerable obscurity. They needed a solution to link these databases and transform the data into meaningful information.

The intensive care units within the Swedish healthcare organization Region Skåne handle patients that need around-the-clock observation and treatment due to very complicated health conditions. All employees are specially educated in intensive care methods and are continuously trained to be able to offer the best possible treatments at all times. The intensive care unit employ approximately 900 people throughout Region Skåne. Intensive care is the most resource intensive area within healthcare and therefore the need for follow up and optimization is particularly great. Region Skåne runs a unique cooperation between its five largest hospitals. For a few years now, the intensive care units have systematically developed common job descriptions for all healthcare tasks. This makes it possible to compare invested resources and results between the hospitals and thereby also draw valuable and meaningful conclusions about how to improve their quality and efficiency.

The Town of Oakville, located in Canada, had a wealth of data but lacked the tools for effective analysis and visualization. The existing tool, QlikView, was maintained by IT staff and was not user-friendly for everyday staff. The town needed a solution that was easy to use and could be utilized by a wider pool of employees. The goal was to enable staff to create and use their own dashboards, thereby promoting data literacy and self-service. The town also wanted to ensure data integrity and accuracy, as the insights drawn from data are only as good as the information placed into the system.

VodafoneZiggo, a merger of two prominent providers in the Netherlands, faced a complex environment with many legacy tools, different techniques, and processes. The company had over 10,000 reports, leading to many versions of the truth. The company needed a tool that would enable it to merge all its data and processes. The company's ambition was to create the most enjoyable digital customer experience, blending the best of technology and human interaction in a personal, instant, and easy way. They also aimed to be the employer of choice.

Takeuchi is a Japanese compact construction equipment company that has a presence in Australia, Europe, Asia, the UK, and the USA. The company is a pioneer in the construction industry, building the world's first 360° full-turn compact excavator in 1971 and the first compact track loader in 1986. Despite its leading share of the compact equipment market, Takeuchi US is constantly threatened by new players. Effective business intelligence (BI) is vital for the company to remain competitive. However, prior to 2019, there was no automated process for obtaining that data. The company relied on complex and time-consuming Excel spreadsheets and SQL reports. It could take up to two weeks for one dedicated person to assemble the mid- and year-end reviews, and additional time for those supplying the necessary data points.

Hyakunousha International Limited, a Japanese omusubi store operator, faced challenges in obtaining timely sales data from its over 100 stores. The company's existing system only provided standard reports, which then had to be manipulated to gain useful insights. This slow process of data analysis was inefficient and did not support the company's need for up-to-the-minute sales data to plan and manage its operations. Furthermore, Hyakunousha wanted to provide user-friendly tools that staff could use independently to gain the insights they needed. The company aimed to create a 'data-savvy' culture where staff routinely made use of data and data analysis to support planning and decision-making.

Nabtesco, a Japanese manufacturer of industrial robots and hydraulic equipment, was facing intense global competition. The demand for quality, cost, delivery, and service (QCDS) had increased, and Nabtesco needed to innovate its manufacturing processes to stay competitive. The company recognized the need for data-driven decision making to improve its marketing capabilities and anticipate client demands. However, they were not fully utilizing the data they collected as a management resource. Existing databases and spreadsheets were cumbersome and often crashed when handling large amounts of data. Some companies within the group had started using Business Intelligence (BI) tools, but they hadn't fully mastered their capabilities.

The DDG, General Practitioner (GP) call services, had been using Adastra, a call management and patient registration system specifically designed for GP services. However, Adastra lacked sophisticated analysis functions, making it difficult to generate management information beyond the number of patient contacts and consultations. The organization needed to find out whether they were satisfying the performance criteria for the response to calls. They initially attempted to tackle the problem by developing an Access database themselves, but soon realized that QlikView was a far better option.

EDEKA Hessenring, part of the EDEKA Group, was facing significant inventory discrepancies amounting to €4.5 billion annually across the German retail industry. These discrepancies were largely due to organizational weaknesses and employee crime. The company's auditing department, consisting of only four people, was responsible for auditing approximately 4,300 employees. The auditing process was heavily reliant on the experience of the employees and required a significant amount of effort. With a data volume of more than 36 million lines of accounting data per month for 73 markets and branches, this was a near impossible task. EDEKA Hessenring needed an analytical tool that could evaluate all the transaction data according to various criteria both systematically and quickly.

FE Global Electronics, a leading electronic components distributor in the pan-Asia region, faced challenges due to its broad distribution coverage and complex web of supplier and customer relationships. The company had trouble getting consistent, timely, and visual information from its legacy systems and other data sources, in addition to its SAP ERP system. This lack of timely and correct information made managing inventory a major headache. The organization faced several problems of increasing and aging inventory, identifying and managing demand and consumption patterns, and managing obsolescence. Managers lacked timely and enough information on receivables aging, which affected cash flow and increased bad debt. Compounding the problem, the company had been unable to get its A/R information in foreign currencies to understand exposure and minimize currency exchange losses.

FiberMark, a multinational company specializing in the production of specialty fiber-based materials, was struggling with data management. As the company grew, the volume of data it collected began to exceed its ability to effectively analyze and gain insights from it. The company's JD Edwards system was managing ERP-related data effectively, but the management had to run thousands of pages of reports to extract any information from that data. This process was time-consuming and often did not provide the necessary information for making quick, accurate, and well-informed decisions. The company needed a solution that would allow them to interact with their data in ways that were not previously possible.