Glidewell Laboratories, the largest dental lab in the United States, faced a significant challenge when they adopted the CAD/CAM Digital Manufacturing standard. The adoption led to a tenfold increase in the amount of data the company had to store and analyze, reaching over 150 million records. To manage this change, Glidewell aimed to create a more responsive, cloud-based infrastructure to support business intelligence and analytics. However, cloud migrations can be tricky, often requiring custom coding that slows down the process, reducing the time-based value of analytics for quick business decision-making. Glidewell's on-premises data storage solution included over 80 separate databases, adding to the complexity of the migration.

Colmobil, Israel's largest importer and distributor of vehicles, was executing several SAP projects in parallel across the company’s SAP landscape. This included migrating two subsidiaries’ legacy systems to SAP, which required updating testing environments to develop new business logic and properly connect all the data. However, creating a new system or refreshing an existing one with updated data for a new project was extremely time-consuming. It could take up to a week of intensive work to complete these tasks. As a result, teams always questioned whether it was worth creating a fresh system or whether they could risk working on an outdated one. Dependence on the Basis team created bottlenecks. The Application team had to rely on the Basis team to refresh a QA or Dev environment. Bottlenecks inevitably led to long lead times to create new environments. It was difficult to recreate erroneous events or research bugs. Discrepancies between the production environment and Dev or QA limited the company’s ability to address issues when they arose. Issues usually appeared in the newest customizations or development work, where the gap between production and Dev or QA existed.

Mercedes-Benz USA implemented SAP Finance and Controlling in 2000, followed by Parts Logistics, Materials Management, Sales and Distribution, and Production Planning in recent years. With five business units running on two instances of SAP, the environment has become progressively more complex. The total SAP system now houses two terabytes of data, with pricing tables alone adding up to 400 million records. The primary issue caused by the refreshes was that they took the non-production systems offline for several workdays in the middle of the week, which would negatively affect ongoing projects. Mercedes-Benz wanted to be able to provide developers with the data they needed for testing on an as-needed basis while reducing the number of full refreshes required per year. The company also wanted to be able to protect version information.

Tangerine, a direct bank in Canada, was looking to become a more full-service digital bank. They wanted to listen closely to their customers and create services that their customers were looking for. This required Tangerine to have access to customer data in real time so they could respond quickly to their needs. As they began this journey, they reached out to their customers to find out what they wanted from a bank. The first step was to develop a responsive website with a user interface that easily adapts to the device customers are using to access it. The next step was to leverage customer data differently. They needed to keep track of customer feedback and complaints, which included every face-to-face and phone interaction with a customer, in addition to social media sentiment. This requirement had Tangerine’s IT team looking at the data in their current data warehouse as well as the expected growth for their data over the next several years. It also had the team looking at the time it took to move their data so that their bank managers could analyze it while the data was fresh.

University of Maryland University College (UMUC) was facing the challenge of organizing and deriving insights from four core datasets, totaling 10 terabytes. These datasets included data related to online student activities, student enrollments, financials, and customer relationship management. The data was stored in a mix of on-premises Oracle and SQL Server databases, Salesforce, and other cloud-based service applications. UMUC’s challenge was to aggregate these disparate data sources, normalize the data, and then load it into a data warehouse for analysis. This was a classic ‘data integration challenge’ that included extracting data from source systems, staging the data in a relational database and applying transformations, loading data into a data warehouse, and running analytics and providing a visualization layer.

PRIMAGAS, a utility company with regional headquarters in Krefeld, Dresden, and Würzburg, was facing challenges in analyzing Oracle data for its subsidiary. The data was analyzed by manual reports in Excel, which was a time-consuming process. The company was under high pressure due to its business operations. The parent company was using another tool which was not suitable for PRIMAGAS's business. The company was dealing with large quantities of data.

Prince William Health System faced several challenges. They lacked real-time visibility into their Accounts Receivable (AR) process due to the outsourcing of management and tracking, coupled with limited reporting. This lack of visibility was a significant issue as it hindered their ability to effectively manage their revenue cycle. Additionally, they were struggling with high write-offs for insurance claims, which was negatively impacting their financial performance. Another challenge was the assessment of physician performance for the contract renewal process. The hospital needed a way to track and analyze physician performance to make informed decisions about contract renewals.

Procurement Lincolnshire, a shared service partnership between eight local authorities in the East Midlands, wanted to respond to the need for efficiency savings by analysing its expenditure in more detail than ever before. They decided to improve its visibility over procurement activity with a new software platform to help meet the budget reduction targets posed by the government Comprehensive Spending Review in 2010. The procurement activities under scrutiny already cover around 30 categories. They range from reviews of high spending services, such as adult social care and children services, to outlays on photocopiers, pest control, and even dog kennelling. The challenge was finding a user friendly dashboard solution to access customised data mining reports for a more holistic view of the organisation spend.

The Office for Computing, Geography and Statistics of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano manages the entire information system and serves 6,000 workstations. Its main client is the Provincial Statistics Institute, which runs provincial statistics analyses. The Office needed to find a user-friendly tool that presents detailed findings and a system that does not require complex technological infrastructures. They also needed to analyze highly complex data combinations efficiently. The Office conducted a study to find the tool that best suits the Provincial Administration’s environment – an agile, customizable tool that would not require complex technological infrastructure and that guarantees good performance.

PT. Kapal Api Global, a manufacturer and distributor of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), was facing performance issues when analyzing huge amounts of data (1.5 billion records, 200 million rows). There was a 2-3 week gap needed to prepare analysis, which was affecting decision making. The conventional reporting tools they were using were unable to cope with the huge data sets and frequent user changes to analytical requirements. The company has a distribution footprint that includes more than 500,000 stores nationwide, mostly consisting of small family-owned shops.

Qualcomm, a leading developer and innovator of advanced wireless technologies, products, and services, faced challenges in analyzing the usage of its major enterprise applications. The existing Business Intelligence (BI) tools required up to six months to build each new application, which was time-consuming and inefficient. The team needed a solution that was more rapid and analytically driven to analyze enterprise application usage throughout the company. The search for a solution led Qualcomm Senior Programmer Analyst Steve Rimar to discover QlikView online. He was intrigued by the appealing visual analysis and the ability to rapidly develop new applications.

Radiometer, a pioneer and international market leader for blood gas analyzers, was facing increasing cost pressures and needed to optimize its corporate efficiency. The company was using a complex Excel solution with numerous macros for data evaluation. This procedure was not only error-prone and complex, but it was also difficult to use. In addition, the data volume became too large for such a solution to reliably and quickly handle the evaluations. The company considered adopting an OLAP-based business intelligence solution that was already in use at the parent company in Denmark. However, it quickly became clear that this system also could not satisfy the requirements of Radiometer in Germany.

Region Skåne Habilitation and Assistive Technology Services, a group within healthcare organization Region Skåne, was facing several challenges. They needed to coordinate six different operational systems, improve the presentation of analysis in a visually engaging format, and reduce manual data collection and analysis. The services they provide are based on the principle that all people are equal regardless of age, gender, disability, and ethnic or religious background. They help treat people with permanent disabilities with exercise and assistive technology to enable participation in everyday life. The services are based on each patient’s expressed needs, which change in nature and extent throughout a person’s lifetime.

Reifenhäuser, a leading supplier of machines and manufacturing plant for the plasticisation of thermoplastic synthetic materials, faced challenges due to the changing landscape of the synthetic materials and plastic processing industry. The industry faced demands for plastics to bear the “green dot” to show their suitability for recycling and it’s now necessary to meet even tougher environmental standards to find solutions which are not hydrocarbons-based. The company also had to consider the environmental conditions at manufacturing sites. The company was also facing issues with its previous systems which had failed to provide any comprehensive evaluation of the in-house databases. The costs involved in making even the slightest modifications were prohibitive. Using Excel spreadsheets when working on complex analysis operations was unproductive and the results could not be easily reproduced.

Reliance Life Insurance was facing several challenges with their reporting process. The process was manual, with employees having to extract data from the Life Asia software and compile them in Excel. This was not only time-consuming but also led to issues with accuracy and consistency between reports. There were no linkages between the Excel sheets, which made comparative studies difficult and delayed decision-making. The company needed a solution that could provide customized solutions to their clients, both individual and corporate, and provide access to reporting tools that could analyze the data and drill down to the bleeding end or profitable sources.

Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (RPC), a leading UK law firm, was seeking to upgrade its IT infrastructure and software to ensure business excellence and provide its partners and lawyers with the best tools for their jobs. The firm recognized the need for a more astute use of technology to enhance their knowledge management functions, especially in the face of tightening internal corporate legal budgets. RPC wanted a business intelligence tool to create a support service to help lawyers and partners view, analyze, and interact with data about legal matters and monitor financial performance more transparently and effectively. Senior staff at RPC were also expressing frustrations with their previous ways of working with matter management. They wanted a more understandable way of examining the figures in the accounting system and to interpret whether particular matters they were handling were financially managed correctly.

Robinsons Brewery, one of the UK's largest regional brewers, was facing a challenge with its existing reporting system. The company had a vast amount of information to manage, stemming from its estate of over 370 public houses and its expansion into wholesale, free trade, off-trade activity, and state-of-the-art brewing and bottling facilities. The existing system was inefficient and expensive, taking up to two weeks to extract data from different sources such as Dynamics NAV, SQL data warehouse, and Excel. This time-consuming process was hindering the company's growth, and a more efficient and economical system was needed.

Roland Scandinavia A/S, a leading distributor of musical instruments and large-format color printers in the Nordic countries, was struggling with managing a rapidly increasing volume of data from procurement, storage, and sales. The company had invested in the ERP system Scala to help create the needed overview, but it soon became obvious that it was difficult to draw out useful data. The manual reports in different systems were not providing the necessary insights and the company was in need of a solution that could provide a comprehensive overview of the company data.

Roxcel Group, a leading global retailer and wholesaler of paper and cartons, was facing challenges in managing its international transit trade due to its intense growth and presence in diverse markets. The company needed to gain an overview of all orders, flow of goods, and funds. The existing ERP solution was no longer sufficient to control the international transit trade. The company also needed to provide analysis capabilities on top of its internal ERP application and consolidate data across its global branches. The company was considering developing an analysis solution by itself.

Royal Jordanian Airlines, the flag carrier of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, was struggling to manage the increasing volumes of big data in its Oracle system. The airline needed a better understanding of the business, which required detailed data on many aspects of operations, including fuel consumption, cabin and cockpit functions, mail and courier traffic, and catering costs. The airline relied heavily on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for business discovery, but pulling data from disparate sources was time-consuming and required dedicated IT resources. It took the airline almost a month to aggregate data for a static report and then process the data. Given the highly competitive nature of the aviation industry, Royal Jordanian required a cost-effective business discovery platform that was sensitive to changes in market conditions.

Ruffer LLP, an investment management firm with 85 staff and just under £4.5 billion in funds under management, was facing challenges with their data management and analysis activities. They were heavily reliant on large internal spreadsheets for MIS, which were increasingly time-consuming and resource-intensive to manage. The firm wanted to move away from this 'spreadsheet mentality' that is common in many businesses. Additionally, the disparate data sources were making it difficult for Ruffer staff to update data and check for errors. This cumbersome data management was leading to concerns about potential inaccuracies, a problem Ruffer was determined to avoid.

SABMiller India had stored all of its data on Microsoft SQL Server and ran its Enterprise and Resource Planning (ERP) system on SYSPRO for its commercial business operations of Finance, Manufacturing and Sales and Distribution. All other business processes were supported by over 45 applications and as a result, the company was unable to generate reports by combining data from multiple applications. SAB Miller India needed reporting and analysis to provide the appropriate level of depth and flexibility in order to comply with statutory requirements, as well as for making crucial business decisions. The company was also dealing with reporting challenges. The team were pulling together multiple data sources into one report, which was a time consuming process, and an inaccurate method for reporting.

Sahlgrenska University Hospital faced the challenge of integrating data from Siemens Melior patient journal system with five other hospital systems. The hospital needed to provide medical professionals with faster access to critical information to identify and treat any complications from cranial surgery. The existing system was not efficient in measuring patient flows, groupings, and costs. The information about the patient was spread in different places, making it extremely difficult to get the basic data for decision making fast enough.

Salto Systems, a global manufacturing company specializing in electronic access control systems, was in need of a balanced scorecard in a single tool. The company wanted to deploy this tool across its sales, accounts, quality control, and aftersales returns business units. The company's managers were looking for a technology that could provide all the capabilities that used to require a complete package of products. The company began the deployment of the business intelligence (BI) application in September 2009 and completed it in April 2010.

Scania Denmark, a world leader in the sales and service of heavy trucks and buses, faced several challenges. The company needed to improve coordination between sales, finance, service, production, and shipping. The production team required visibility into product performance, usage, and service. The IT staff was under pressure from producing multiple reports on IBM System i (AS/400) information. Scania Denmark was using a number of different applications on different platforms, including generic reporting systems. It was crucial for Scania to quickly retrieve and compile all necessary information, and train its organization to use this information proactively.

Schenker, a leading provider of integrated logistics services, was facing several challenges. The company wanted to maintain its status as one of the world's leading providers of integrated logistics services. It aimed to improve customer service quality with reliability and on-time delivery rates. Additionally, Schenker wanted to maximize cost efficiencies while minimizing its environmental footprint. The company needed a solution that could help it track and report on the status, location, and timing of shipments to improve on-time delivery and track container loads to ensure moving at capacity and minimizing fuel and environmental costs.

Schenker España, a leading Spanish shipping company and a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn (DB) Schenker, was in need of a global information analysis system that could be deployed in the shortest time possible. The company uses diverse technology platforms, each with corporate applications for each specific business area, and an SAP/R3 enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for financial and logistics management. These platforms include Windows, Citrix, VMWare, Oracle, and various UNIX/Linux-based systems. The company had evaluated various business intelligence (BI) tools and began to develop a pilot project with Business Objects, though this never became a reality. In addition, it had spent most of its available resources in the early stages.

SEB Group, a North European financial group, was facing challenges in gaining a better understanding of its insurance customers and portfolio. The company wanted to improve cross-selling of products and increase customer share of wallet. Additionally, SEB was looking to improve IT project management within its merchant banking division. The company spans four divisions of merchant banking, retail banking, wealth management, and life insurance for 400,000 corporate customers and institutions, and 5 million private customers. With ~300 billion in assets, SEB achieved ~$6 billion in revenue with 20,000 employees.

The Sistema de Emergencias Médicas (SEM) is a public enterprise within the Health Department assigned to the Servicio Catalán de la Salud (Health Department of Catalonia). It is responsible for handling outpatient casualties and emergencies as well as emergency medical transport via the emergency number. In the past year alone it has dealt with over four million calls. As part of its strategy for continuing improvement, the SEM decided to develop a system to increase actual speed and efficiency ratios in its service to the public. The system required a tool that would support the development of management control methodologies and, specifically, enable scorecard implementation across an organisation employing 701 staff and 3,720 associates with an annual budget of €245.7 million.

Shoppers Stop, a leading Indian retail department store, was facing challenges with its data analysis process. The company had been using traditional BI tools and Microsoft Excel for internal reporting, but the process was both limited and time-consuming. The team was seeking a new business discovery solution to improve its data analysis with the long-term goal of streamlining business operations and ultimately increasing sales. The company wanted to enable a 'self-service' data analysis model and increase the efficiency of data analysis.