Business Intelligence Journal

Business intelligence, data warehousing and analytics news and resources

DHL Express Implements Next-Generation Business Intelligence with MicroStrategy

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DHL Express has expanded its deployment of MicroStrategy to support its Business Process Optimization and Enterprise Business Intelligence programs, which will provide reporting and analytics for key areas across the company. DHL Express is a subsidiary of DHL, the global market leader of the international express and logistics industry.

DHL Express is using MicroStrategy throughout the organization for reporting and analysis of key business areas, including sales, marketing, finance, and operations. With a diverse, vast network and delivery schedules as tight as those operated by DHL Express, having a clear, up-to-date, and actionable view of the business is of immense importance. With MicroStrategy, DHL users will gain enhanced insights into their business, providing valuable sales and customer information by product and geography to better understand both key customers and service level performance, leading to new business opportunities and improved service.

A MicroStrategy customer since 2003, DHL Express has now expanded its enterprise-wide deployment across multiple departments, with additional applications planned for the future. Dashboard applications delivering information based on KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for the many diverse areas of the business will also be deployed. These new implementations are part of an information strategy to improve data management, analysis, and reporting to enhance the decision making processes of senior and operational management. [Read more…]

New Business Intelligence White Paper from Cognos Explores Trends in Data Visualization

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Cognos announced the availability of the third in a series of three White Papers exploring core principles of effective data visualization. Spanning more than 2,000 years of recorded human history, Data Visualization: Past, Present, and Future examines the birth and evolution of data visualization, from early Egyptian tables used to organize astronomical information through bar charts, treemaps, and geo-spatial visualization tools (such as Google Earth).

Commissioned by Cognos, the paper was written by renowned data visualization expert and educator Stephen Few and published by the Cognos Innovation Center for Performance Managementâ„¢. The paper follows the previous releases of two papers, Visual Communication: Core Principles for Displaying Quantitative Information, and Visual Pattern Recognition: Meaningful Patterns in Quantitative Business Information, both by Few. [Read more…]

Workforce Intelligence from Hyperion Helps Companies Measure Human Capital Impact

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To gain insight into the demographics of their workforce and more effectively leverage their human capital around the globe, companies in multiple industries are turning to human resources solutions from Hyperion (Nasdaq Global Select: HYSL), the global leader in Business Performance Management (BPM) software.

Companies are increasingly recognizing the importance of measuring the return on their investment in personnel-related expenses, such as recruiting, direct compensation, training, benefits, and outsourcing. In addition to implementing Hyperion software to streamline financial operations, these organizations are extending their use of Hyperion’s BPM and business intelligence (BI) capabilities into workforce reporting and analysis. Expanding the use of Hyperion System 9 software can help human resources managers, business line managers, and company executives:

* Consolidate and integrate enterprise data sources to create a single system for human resources reporting and analysis, which complements and leverages the workforce data in enterprise resource planning (ERP) and human resource transaction systems
* Gain critical insight into the impact of human capital spending on corporate strategy and objectives
* Synchronize workforce-related expense plans with the financial budgeting and forecasting process to create a consolidated view of the workforce and its productivity
* Decrease manual reporting effort and reliance on IT for custom reports with self-serve analysis of the workforce along any dimension: by function, level, department, geographical location, length of service, etc.
* Integrate consolidated data with existing planning and reporting processes and internal measurement tools for immediate, accurate insight into workforce demographics, diversity, compensation, hiring, attrition, and performance trends [Read more…]

KB Toys Selects Microstrategy as Its Business Intelligence Platform

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MicroStrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) announced that KB Toys, Inc. has selected MicroStrategy as its Business Intelligence Platform. KB Toys, Inc. is the nation’s largest mall-based specialty toy retailer.

Initially, KB Toys plans to use MicroStrategy for reporting on key merchandising and supply chain metrics to improve the management of inventory from its vendors to its stores. MicroStrategy will be used to manage product life cycles, track customer demand, and monitor inventory levels through dashboards and exception reporting, enabling KB Toys to enhance customer service levels while improving return on inventory.

“We are evolving our approach to buying, planning, product allocation, and store operations,” said Frank Andryauskas, Chief Information Officer at KB Toys. “MicroStrategy will enable us to better understand inventory
trends, track product demand, and analyze the efficiency of store operations.”

“We selected MicroStrategy because of its scalability, user-friendly Web interface, and robust reporting features that help us to make fact-based decisions which impact our bottom line,” said Tim Armstrong, Director of Analytical Business Solutions at KB Toys. “MicroStrategy provides the ability for hundreds of concurrent users to quickly retrieve and analyze large volumes of detailed data and efficiently monitor performance of key business metrics.” [Read more…]

Cognos Announces Support for IBM Dynamic Warehousing Initiative

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Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN) announced its support for IBM’s new Dynamic Warehousing initiative, geared to helping customers use advanced analytics as part of a real-time business process, and unlock knowledge buried in both structured and unstructured information.

Building upon IBM’s enhanced version of the DB2 Warehouse and based on the DB2 9 Viper data server, the initiative includes new IBM Balanced Warehouse packages, which are pre-configured combinations of software, hardware and storage technologies optimized to meet a wide range of dynamic warehousing requirements.

“Cognos has been deeply involved in many major innovations with IBM in recent years. IBM’s latest initiative is a positive step forward to helping organizations transform their static data into competitive assets, enabling customers in all industries to make better, faster decisions by delivering increased business insight to the right people at the right time,” said Rupert Bonham-Carter, associate vice-president of global strategic alliances at Cognos. “IBM’s commitment to driving greater efficiencies on the back-end – including with ever-complex data warehousing models – ultimately translates into significant value on the front-end for our customers, which is deserving of our support and ongoing collaboration.” [Read more…]