Foseco UK

Foseco, which is based in Tamworth, UK, makes hundreds of products for the foundry industry worldwide and has a particular strength in the automotive sector.

The company uses a Business Intelligence application based on their main line of business software, J. D. Edwards One World.

The BI application has cut the time spent by each company salesman in preparing monthly reports from two days to a few hours. Information is presented in a standardised format on-screen, making it easier to salesmen, product managers and Senior Management, each of who have access to different levels of information.

The initial application was for the sales department but BI has now being extended to the finance department and will be rolled out across Europe and then beyond into the 34 countries to which Foseco sells its products.

Foseco, in the process of implementing JDE One World needed a BI supplier who could handle the entire project. Of course this included all the technical aspects of development where Simpson Associates technical skills are focussed on BI. The Simpson Associates methodical approach ensured that the issues were identified early, and the regular communication review brought the issues to the attention of the business and ensured that solutions were business not technology driven. Apart from strong technical expertise, key to the Simpson Approach is the business knowledge and breadth of experience of the consultants. In the Simpson Associates development methodology business and it's people are central not peripheral to a technical solution.

"You expect consultants to be good at sorting out the 'hard' technical issues but the interesting thing about Simpson Associates is that they are also very good at the 'softer' training and information-sharing aspects."

Simpson Associates also provided the strong project management required to bring the project in on time, in a company with heavy demands on IT and key business analysts. Simpson Associates use project management to maintain focus on the specific scope, aims and objectives, ensuring that the project efforts are directed to the real issues and not diverted. This strong aspect of the Simpson Asscoiates approach was welcomed by the Foseco team.

"Their project management skills are first class. They were very fast at understanding our business and they were very knowledgeable about their application software and Cognos BI software."

Simpson Associates recognise that delivery of the BI application is only part of the solution and deployment includes enabling people within the organisation to effectively use the BI tools. Simpson Associates offer training from accredited Cognos trainers using the Cognos material or alternatively we can develop tailor-made training to meet specific application needs. With Foseco we integrated our training expertise, with the specific application and business knowledge, to tailor-make a training solution for Foseco.

With the project delivered Simpson Associates recognise the need for support and updates. Our own Help desk ensures that application as well as software skills are available on a required basis. Our programme of update seminars ensures that our customers have the opportunity to keep abreast of the latest developments.

"The training was tailor-made for us and particularly impressive, as is Simpson Associates' programme of customer update seminars"