BI Systems Development
Noble Foods lay foundations for enterprise-wide Business Intelligence system
Project: change++ delivered a comprehensive business intelligence solution that could be used flexibly to both address ad hoc information requests and enterprise-wide reporting.
Services: BI Systems Development.
Results: Noble Foods now has a ‘single source of truth’ on which to base its business decision-making and protect margins.
The client
Noble Foods is the UK's largest supplier of eggs and egg products. It supplies over 72 million eggs to the country's major retailers each week. The company owns a number of brands including The Happy Egg Co, Big & Fresh, and Purely Organic. Its egg products are widely used in the food manufacturing sector and the Noble Foods is also specialist poultry processors and feed manufacturers.
Their needs
Noble Foods is committed to innovation, and for this it requires insight to its key customers for product and market development. This prompted demand for enhanced reporting throughout Noble Foods’ business. Ultimately, it wanted an agile enterprise-wide Business Intelligence (BI) system to bring together information from a range of data sources and deliver it to key decision makers in a readily accessible format.
What we did
change++ was approached to deliver BI that would keep pace with fast-changing information needs and support the current business focus, and recommended the IBM Cognos BI suite of tools for its flexible BI reporting and analysis capabilities via a user- friendly interface.
Nobel Foods wanted all users to have comprehensive and flexible reporting and allow certain groups to be able to create their own reports and use PowerCubes for data analysis.
The company used an ERP system centred on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV solution. Most data for reporting would come from NAV, and historical sales data unavailable in NAV would be stored in a new Microsoft SQL Server reporting database.
The first phase of the project was to initially develop a sales reporting system for the Shell Egg Division. A cube to provide key sales values and volumes information for analysis users is supplemented by a package giving direct access to the Microsoft NAV database for ad-hoc, real-time operational reporting. Dashboard screens feature summary and exception reports and enable users to drill through to more detailed flexible reports.
After the cubes had been developed for Phase 1, change++ consulted the user groups to:
• Agree cube dimensions, hierarchies and measures
• Suggest reports for the dashboard
• Confirm what was needed in the standard reports
It quickly became clear that other divisions would benefit from the powerful reports that change++ made possible, and a sales system for the Egg Products Division was developed in parallel.
The results
Completion of the corporate BI project gave Noble Foods a reporting system to meet the needs of a multi-divisional, fast moving, innovative food business.
“The change++ team have been very helpful in pulling this project together, are always available to answer queries and have excellent knowledge of the IBM Cognos toolset. It’s good to have such a skilled team to work with and we’re looking forward to their support as we roll the project out.”
- David Griffiths, Noble Foods BI Development and Support Manager
Key BI capabilities like flexible, ad hoc access to data, multi-dimensional analysis, self-service reporting and, above all, a single version of the truth, will significantly enhance decision-making and the ability to evaluate new products, marketing opportunities and operational changes across the organisation.
For example, a cube that monitors egg packaging usage and costs means the business can immediately respond to changes and protect margins while other cubes can highlight where sales of certain products might be improved.
Benefits include:
- Business critical decisions based on accurate, trusted information
- Flexible ad hoc access to data for user groups
- Company-wide reporting available using a ‘single source of truth’
- Enhanced decision-making to evaluate new opportunities
- Increased responsiveness to market changes
- Margins were protected and profitability rose