Case Study Collection for Analysts - Reporting for Microsoft Dynamics ...€¦ · “If you have...

Case Study Collection for Analysts

Derek Rose, Ken Blanchard & AB Vista

“How much does a bad decision cost you?”

Sacha Rose, CEO

Derek Rose

“If you have Microsoft Dynamics NAV you should have PrecisionPoint.”

2

Terry Orletsky , Vice President of IT

Ken Blanchard Companies

“PrecisionPoint is the best way forward for us”

Nick Robinson, Financial Controller

AB Vista

Contents Page

Derek Rose - Summary Pg 4

• Their Challenge Pg 6

• The Benefits Pg 8

• The Results Pg 10

Ken Blanchard - Summary Pg 11




AB Vista - Summary Pg 18




3

Company

'Derek Rose' sleepwear is one of the

world's finest luxury brands with an

excellent reputation for nightwear,

loungewear and underwear.

4

Luxury sleepwear brand, Derek Rose goes from strength to strength with PrecisionPoint Business Intelligence Software.

Project

• PrecisionPoint for Dynamics NAV

• Reporting using XLPublisher, Excel

add-in

Challenges

• Data extraction from

Navision - without huge

time investment

• Access to analysis for

decision making

• Get answers to questions

about the range, stock,

customers, orders and

rate of sales

5

Key Benefits

• Data reliability - sound

decisions can be made

and trend analyses help

to rationalise the range

• Fast turnaround of

reports

• Efficiencies - faster

access to information

provides management

with greater insight

Results

• Encourages

communication with

customers

• Ensures stock

programme is efficient

• Promotes sound

decisions for further

growth

Their Challenge

A focus on efficient business operations led the company to search for a new

accounting system in 2009 and ultimately, it chose the Microsoft Navision solution

which Sacha Rose refers to as: 'A powerful piece of kit that provides the company with

the opportunity to capture valuable data with a view to slicing and dicing at a later

stage.'

Having successfully implemented Navision, Sacha Rose knew exactly what he

needed: a business intelligence and reporting solution to provide the answers he was

seeking on a daily basis to questions about stock, ranges, customers, orders and the

rate of sales month on month - trend information at his fingertips.

6

Surfing the Internet one evening, he came across PrecisionPoint and asked the team

in to talk. Rose liked what he saw and saw the potential for the delivery of the level of

information he was looking for to help drive the company forward.

7

Rose says that there were several primary

reasons for selecting PrecisionPoint: he was

convinced by the intelligence that underpins the

cube, the ease with which data can be extracted

from the Navision system without specialised

coding knowledge and by the fact that the

software is Excel based, making it easy to learn.

The Benefits

As a CEO of a growing company, Sacha Rose is intent on driving further success for

the brand and to do this, he relies on the data provided by PrecisionPoint. Every day,

the software generates two specific reports for him; one provides a breakdown of retail

sales and sales made through the website which are set against the budget and a

second provides information on all the wholesale orders that have been placed.

Wherever Sacha is in the world, he has access to real-time information that can be

used to influence secure business decisions.

The implementation has helped improve a number of business processes.

PrecisionPoint runs the profit and loss for the finance team, helps the production team

forecast the rate of sales by month and the sales team use it as an order- tracking tool.

Access to the granular detail on who has ordered on a season-by-season basis helps

the company to gain an in-depth understanding of what its customers like.

8

"It gives you answers and allows you to question customer’s trends as well as giving specifics on missing seasonal orders. It encourages communication because if we see that a wholesaler hasn't placed an order, I can arrange a meeting to find out why or have a telephone conversation with him,"

PrecisionPoint is considered an essential tool in the brand's development with all

collections subjected to rigorous analysis. "The new menswear underwear range will

be analysed in depth and we have already added new fields to Navision to facilitate

this. We can be sure that the stock programme is efficient and that we can determine

the strongest pieces in the line in terms of size, colour and shape," Rose says

9

Sacha Rose, CEO

Derek Rose

The Results

Sacha Rose is one of PrecisionPoint's most enthusiastic spokespeople and is a firm

believer in the value of business intelligence. He comments: "The ROI is quick and can

be summed up in one question: how much does a bad decision cost you?"

Having worked with the PrecisionPoint UK team for over two years, Sacha has got to

know them very well.

10

"Their people are the type we want to do business with - they always deliver and are reliable and honest. From the top down, there is a real involvement and a genuine interest in what we are trying to achieve. We feel we have found a partner we can trust and who we like doing business with and speaking as an SME, they are hard to find."

Sacha Rose, CEO

Derek Rose

Company

The Ken Blanchard Companies is a

global leader in workplace learning,

productivity, performance, and

leadership training solutions,

helping companies improve their

performance, productivity, and

bottom-line results.

11

The Ken Blanchard Companies are fortunate to have Terry Orletsky as VP of IT. He knew only an extraordinary Business Intelligence (BI) Solution would be up to the job.

Project

• PrecisionPoint Software

• Distribution using Excel and Web

• Subscription model subsequently

converted to capital

Challenges

• To provide analysis to

support new financial

model

• To reduce time spent on

production of critical

financial reports

• To allow breadth of

reporting

12

Key Benefits

• Ability to trial the

software with minimal

up-front costs

• Accuracy - 'the numbers

are right‘

• Easy to learn

Results

• Time savings in report

building - 60 hours

reduced to 8 minutes

• Uncovered profitable

areas of business that

have been ignored

• Provides the answers to

all potential questions

Their Challenge

The Ken Blanchard Companies are fortunate to have Terry Orletsky as vice president

of IT. A former software code writer with long years of experience working in database

design and coding, Terry knew exactly the scale of the challenge the company was

facing and realised that only an extraordinary Business Intelligence (BI) Solution would

be up to the job.

A review of the market for a BI platform revealed PrecisionPoint which is designed to

'lift the lid' on data held by Microsoft Dynamics NAV - the company's data-laden ERP

system.

Following an initial presentation, the PrecisionPoint team created a coherent data

warehouse in a matter of days that included all the dimensions required to produce the

answers to the questions the leadership team would be likely to ask. This proved an

important factor in the decision process as Terry had seen many BI solutions fall apart

if asked a question that had not been anticipated by the IT team.

13

Terry convinced the executive team to trial the software through a subscription

licensing agreement to allow PrecisionPoint to prove its worth.

14

"I went back to the CFO and told her that this software works and most importantly, the numbers are right.”



Terry continues, “I convinced the CFO that the

subscription deal was worth doing, especially as

we had been told that if we went on to buy the

system, the subscription charges would be

credited minus the set-up charges."

The Benefits

One of the key benefits for the Ken Blanchard Companies lies in the fact that they

were able to discover the potential of PrecisionPoint and more importantly, what BI of

this caliber would deliver, without having to invest in the software up front.

Terry Orletsky, vice president of IT, Ken Blanchard Companies said: "I don't know of

any other BI solution that starts at the data layer and presents the cube in such a short

space of time.”

"There was a lot of effort by PrecisionPoint to create successful scenarios for the leadership and they haven't looked for a lot of compensation."



15

“I believe PrecisionPoint is one of the more affordable BI solutions. It used to cost a lot of money to build a cube but Precision Point creates a useable cube out of the box. The video training provided is outstanding. I was writing useful reports within one day."

16

Terry continues, “Most BI systems out there concentrate on the presentation layer and

rely on the user to create the data connection. This becomes an obstacle and a recipe

for BI failure that PrecisionPoint has surmounted.”



The Results

The BI-driven analysis has helped provide new reporting capabilities to a recent

restructuring of the company into 5 separate business units.

In terms of time-savings for the analysts, Terry Orletsky refers to them as 'enormous'.

He cites the example of an in-depth review of the organisation's telecommunications

bill. This involved digging out thousands of transactions and spending 60 hours

'normalising' the data in Excel. The result of the exercise was the saving of $65,000.

With just a little PrecisionPoint experience, the report was re-created in less than 2

hours and this was subsequently reduced to just 8 minutes. "PrecisionPoint can save

so much time and such a lot of what the analysts do is drudgery; resurrecting data and

putting it into Excel."

The Ken Blanchard Companies have now made the decision to move to a capital deal.

Terry explains, "In the long-run, a capital deal is more economic - and the software will

be hosted on the premises."

17

Company

AB Vista is the feed ingredients

division of AB Agri, the agricultural

arm of Associated British Foods

Ltd, which is one of the Europe's

largest food companies employing

102,000 people in 46 countries.

18

With personal previous experience of PrecisionPoint Software, Nick Robinson knew it could help with their Dynamics AX reporting and analytics issues.

Project

• PrecisionPoint for AX

• PrecisionPoint Advanced Inventory

• XLPublisher, Excel add-in

Challenges

• Reporting based on user

requirements, CEO or

CFO

• Production of one-off

reports without having to

engage costly

developers

• Flexibility to add to the

cube whenever needed

19

Key Benefits

• Unlocks the information

held by its Dynamics AX.

• Detailed management

reports provide

invaluable overview

• Allows business to be

split in different ways and

sales analysed by

product line, by region or

by period

Results

• Provides answers to the

questions asked by the

executive team in a way

that suits the company

• Flexibility to add to the

cube allows for changing

needs

• Can rely on the accuracy

of the information

provided by the software

Their Challenge

AB Vista's feed micro-ingredients are among the most advanced in the world and are

sold across five continents. The company headquarters are in Marlborough, UK and

there are international offices in Europe, India, North America, Latin America and Asia.

It was proving difficult to retrieve the level of detailed information the Board needed

from its Microsoft Dynamics AX system. Specific requirements in the brief included:

1. Reporting based on user requirements, CEO or CFO

2. Ability to split the business in different ways to see trends overtime

3. Production of one-off reports without having to engage costly developers

4. Flexibility to add to the cube whenever needed

Nick Robinson, Financial Controller, was instrumental in persuading the board to

implement PrecisionPoint as he had personal experience of the software at another

ABF division.

20

The Benefits

PrecisionPoint Software was initially implemented in March 2010 at the company's

accounting headquarters in Peterborough and in 2012, AB Vista took the decision to

replicate the existing and successful implementation in the UK and extend the software

into newly opened facilities in USA, Brazil and Singapore. At the same time,

PrecisionPoint Advanced Inventory module (PAI) was implemented for stock control.

Because PrecisionPoint interrogates the underlying Dynamics ERP environment and

automatically generates a complete replica of the entire environment and re-purposes

it for multidimensional analysis and reporting, companies such as AB Vista benefit

from unconstrained access to the specific information they need to drive their

businesses forward.

21

Nick Robinson explains why PrecisionPoint plays such an important role:

AB Vista uses PrecisionPoint for detailed management reports using the Excel add-

in/report writer to generate multidimensional views and to provide a valuable overview.

"We rely on the reports as a guide to our progress as they allow us to see trends over

time and to split the business in different ways; for example, we can analyse sales by

region or by product line and over different periods of time."

22

"Anyone with experience of Excel can use PrecisionPoint: advanced users of Excel have picked it up very quickly and even those with less experience, have soon got to grips with it."

"It allows us to get information out of Dynamics AX - which can be difficult - without having to rely on developers every time we want to produce a one-off company report."


AB Vista


AB Vista

The Results

Once the decision was made to expand AB Vista's use of Dynamics AX to the new

regions, Nick said, "It was pretty well a done deal for us to expand our use of

PrecisionPoint. We already had our PrecisionPoint EMEA templates for management

reports and it was just a case of copying them across with a few minor changes." Nick

sees the fact that that he and his team can offer support to the new regions in the

learning process as a huge advantage.

PrecisionPoint provides the flexibility needed to remain agile in a changing

environment. With responsibility for stock control transferred from a sister company

across to AB Vista, the organisation implemented the PrecisionPoint Advanced

Inventory Analysis module (PAI) which allows the integration of inventory movements,

costing, reservations, and all product orders into a single view to enable powerful

inventory analytics.

23

"Dynamics AX has the information but cannot provide it in the way we want it. PrecisionPoint suits us; it provides us with flexibility so we can update the cube - it's the best way forward for us."

24

It makes inventory performance information accessible with pre-built analytics that

provide instant visibility from day one of the rollout and delivers the answers to

questions such as 'what are my best and worst performing inventory items from a cost,

revenue, turnover and margin perspective' and analyses the inventory from numerous

perspectives.


AB Vista

UK Office Abbey House

Grenville Place

Bracknell

Berkshire

RG12 1BP

+44 8451 306 278

[email protected]

US Office 105 S. Broadway

Suite 705

Wichita

Kansas

KS 67202

+1 866 455 2414

[email protected]

Contact PrecisionPoint

mailto:[email protected]






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