AF Consult: QlikView is a business intelligence for consultants

Timur Panferov, the chief financial officer of the Russian divisions of the Swedish consulting Group ÅF, ÅF Consult company, told ATK consulting group about experience of use of the QlikView BI system. "ÅF Consult" began to use the system of one of the first in Russia, in 2004.

The ÅF group — one of the leading players in the market of technical consultation and engineering with more than centenary work experience in this sphere. The company offers highly skilled services and solutions for processing industries, projects in the field of infrastructure and development of IT products. At the moment in the divisions of the ÅF Group located in 20 countries of the world more than 4,000 employees work. Revenue of Group for 2009 made 4.7 billion Swedish kronur.

ATK consulting group: What main objectives and tasks did the management of "ÅF Consult" set for itself when the decision on need to implement a BI system was made?

Timur Panferov: System implementation of a business intelligence was initiated by the headquarters of the ÅF Group. The matter is that qualitative analysis of business is the corporate standard of our Group. The Swedish head office of the ÅF Group and some subsidiary companies already actively used QlikView for support of management decisions, and in 2004 we also implemented this BI system. Centralization and structuring reporting system, optimization of forecasting both on the company in general, and on separate projects and also a first line support of management decisions became the main objectives which QlikView implementation had to solve.

ATK consulting group: Tell, please, about features of an implementation project of QlikView.

Timur Panferov: As far as I know, implementation of the QlikView BI system — one of our fastest IT projects, we implemented it in only 2-3 months. Feature of the project it is possible to call, perhaps, that at the time of system implementation (2004), in Russia there was no Russian-language version of QlikView yet. However us as the international company, the lack of the Russian-language interface did not confuse at all, and we began some of the first to use this flexible tool of a business intelligence in the territory of the CIS.

In the BI solution of QlikView we could integrate a sufficient large number of data sources, even files of Excel. But two systems — PX-light (time recording) and Cognos Controller (consolidation of financial statements) acted as key sources of analytical information.

ATK consulting group: Among what employees of "ÅF Consult" QlikView it is most demanded?

Timur Panferov: The system of the business analysis among top managers of the company and project managers as these employees manage efficiency of our company is most demanded. If to speak about structural units of "ÅF Consult", then the most active users — in divisions of finance and consulting.

ATK consulting group: What problems did QlikView to financial division of "ÅF Consult" help to solve?

Timur Panferov: Thanks to QlikView implementation we could combine data from different reporting systems and analyze information for creation of more viable corporate strategies and accurate financial control. QlikView provided us the convenient tool for tracking of stages of payments, beginning from an aktirovaniye and finishing with payments of invoices. The report on invoices allowed us to control parts on each invoice by projects — the responsible person, planned date of the account, planned date of payment and the amount and also a stage (to an aktirovaniye, it is drawn up, exposed, paid). Thus, we could solve with QlikView flexibly a set of the financial problems connected with the budget of cash flow (BCF), corporate financial statements, forecasting by projects and the company.

ATK consulting group: What problems did QlikView help to solve with division of consulting?

Timur Panferov: Use of QlikView in division of consulting covered the project work "ÅF Consult" to the maximum. So, forecasting on projects allowed our project managers more effectively and to reasonably plan works and to distribute priorities. Detailing of working time on employees allowed to keep track of employment of each specific employee and to increase productivity of work. For example, analyzing distribution of hours by types, types and work categories, we understand what tasks can be carried out more quickly and respectively what competences our employees need to develop. Such approach allows us to improve constantly the professional grade of our project team and to provide highly skilled consulting services which are the standard of the ÅF Group.

ATK consulting group: How do you estimate advantages from QlikView system implementation?

Timur Panferov: QlikView allowed us to analyze quickly activities of the company for all main aspects of consulting business: work of the consultant, project, budget, drawing of accounts. As for analytical and financial statements, a system helped not only to reduce costs for its creation, but also to qualitatively change the reporting, to make analytics more flexible and interactive. Use of a system also allowed us to increase productivity of project work and marketing activities. In general, implementation of QlikView promoted increase in profitability and efficiency of "ÅF Consult".

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