Red cube, shopping mall (IBM Cognos Business Intelligence)

The companies working at the Russian market of retail reside in the conditions of the growing fierce competition and are obliged to find new methods of deduction and gain of own positions. Business development means permanent dynamics of a business environment of the enterprise – opening of new branches, change of the range, suppliers, trade processes. In this regard tools are necessary for the companies for development and implementation of the optimal development strategy. For this purpose top managers of the enterprise should have operational information on all activity of the company with a possibility of the versatile and detailed analysis by all necessary parameters.

The Red Cube company, the retail network of gifts, largest in Russia, selected the Cognos BI system for creation of the OLAP reporting from scales of all enterprise as an optimal solution for support of activity of the company in the conditions of constantly upcoming business.

Project Task

In the conditions of expansion of network of regional representative offices Red Cube the system giving opportunities for processing of constantly increasing information volumes and operational creation of the activity reporting of all enterprise for top managers of the company was necessary. To Cognos BI system implementation activities reports of the company prepared in the tables MS Excel that in the presence of a wide branch network across Russia required considerable labor costs and not always reflected the real situation.

In addition, MS Excel technologies did not allow to integrate data on retail sales with data on activity of owners of club cards that made impossible to keep track of results of marketing efforts and, respectively, to develop the effective loyalty program of clients.

The company management Red Cube made the decision on implementation of the analytical Cognos BI system for the solution of the above-stated problems. The Cognos BI system provider selected Microtest company, the only partner of Cognos in Russia having in the portfolio industry solution for retail based on Cognos Business Intelligence.

Solution

The industry solution Microtest is developed especially for predpriyatiyay retail with wide network of outlets and branches. The solution for Red Cube company included also special development Microtest for the companies using in quality a basis of the accounting system the program Parus allowing to configure easily data exchange between the financial and analytical systems.

The solution included the main functional modules Cognos 7 BI covering everything the Customer's requests:

• PowerPlay is the OLAP server allowing to create analytical models (OLAP cubes) on the basis of which users can carry out the multidimensional interactive analysis and receive necessary reports in a tabular and graphic style;
• Impromptu is the module for creation of any SQL queries to any relational databases visual means;
• Visualizer is a development tool of control panels for heads with an output to one screen of key indicators of activity of the company with a possibility of geographical and price detailing.

In addition, consultants Microtest performed data binding by the carried-out checks to club cards.

The achieved result

The solution provided Microtest allowed to reduce considerably labor costs by preparation of reports, to increase the forecasting accuracy of sales, to optimize warehouse stocks. Allowed to develop an opportunity to carry out the deep analysis of preferences of clients on the basis of reliable data effective the loyalty program and to pursue optimal marketing policy.

Top managers of Red Cube company got access to complete and exact information about activity of the enterprise in the form of interactive analytical models with a possibility of detailing and data analysis from different points of view. In addition, the Cognos BI system allowed to trace online information on sales on all distributed network of branches.

Thus, the company management Red Cube received in the order powerful tools for the analysis of all activity of the enterprise that allowed to optimize eventually management processes, to make activity of the company more transparent and also it is essential to increase competitiveness.