Simpson Associates
Chloride Power Electronics - Reporting Across the Enterprise
Case Study
Chloride Power Electronics, has since 1891, provided power protection systems worldwide, often in highly sensitive fields such as banks, hospitals and telecommunications where power failure could have very serious consequences. Chloride is the only British manufacturer of such systems in Europe's top three.
Scenario
The business uses a Simpson Associates Business Intelligence application on top if its main line of business application, Geac System21. The application has been introduced in nine sites in UK, France, Italy, Spain, the USA and Thailand.
The Business Intelligence application is used to help Chloride Power personnel analyse information on screen and print in finance, sales and marketing, service and manufacturing
The Proof
Simpson Associates identified the business requirements, developed the Business Intelligence application, deployed a core solution throughout the nine sites and trained the users in the reporting tools and the application.
Chloride Power used Simpson Associates' methodology to identify its requirements. A series of workshops identified the initial needs followed by an iterative process of adjustment and improvement. This ensured that the business users were able to specify additional functionality as the business became more familiar with the power of the reporting tools in the context of the Chloride business.
Simpson Associates used the award winning Cognos reporting tools PowerPlay and Impromptu to deliver the business intelligence application. Individually these tools are best of breed for analytical reporting (PowerPlay) and query reporting (Impromptu). Together they provide a unique ability for business users to make better decisions every day
The core development project was co-ordinated by Simpson Associates to ensure that a standard application could be deployed across the group, keeping costs of development to a minimum, whilst enabling local autonomous business units to obtain the maximum advantage by recognising their individual requirements.
Business benefits were delivered through the timely reporting of key business indicators. These included gross margin by customer and by product, on time delivery of products and services by customer and by contract, order backlog by period and by business unit, average buying price and lead time by supplier, overdue receivables by customer and geography and slow moving stock by product and by business unit. In all over 50 key performance indicators delivered daily to local and group management enabling them to track business performance and improve levels of customer service.
Deployment of the Business Intelligence solution required Simpson Associates to work with Chloride business units around the world using their experienced consultants to take responsibility for delivering the application alongside the implementation of Geac System 21. The deployment included implementation of the application, configuration to local reporting requirements, quality assuring the data integrity, training the users and helping them to obtain maximum business benefits.
"This is not just raw data but valuable management information which we need to keep ahead of the field."
"What is remarkable about Simpson Associates is that, first and foremost, they understand about business in general and were very quick to pick up the essential points about our business in particular. They have a sound grasp of commercial realities and obviously know a great deal about BI applications. In particular, they were very knowledgeable about their own application software and Cognos BI software."
"On top of that, though, their consultants are mature enough to know how to handle in-house people who have different levels of technical experience or buy-in to the project. That sensitivity of approach was as valuable an asset to us during the project as their undoubted technical expertise."