Business impact of the new BI Solution: 4% increase in sales

Since the ratio in sales volume between the best summer month and the worst winter is 1: 6, the main challenge for the Marche management is how to deal with such high seasonal fluctuations. The company is aware that the optimization of procurement and supply at individual locations and in different periods (working week vs. weekend, summer vs. winter) can make an important contribution to the optimization of production and sales as well as overall business.

How to lower material waste, how to adapt the offer to the micro-location, how to prepare reports on time and efficiently and how to optimize planning were the company’s challenges. The local management was convinced that custom business intelligence and analytics could help them overcome the above-mentioned challenges to drive better business results.

We know we have data that we can use more effectively. In our company, it’s details that matter. For example, bad weather during a weekend can reduce our business results by the factor of 2.

Aleksander Sinkovič Jurca, CFO, Marche Gostinstvo

Looking for an optimal solution

Like in every other company belonging to an international chain, business and technological solutions used in Marche Gostinstvo are centralized. For the general ledger SAP ERP is used worldwide and for its centralized business intelligence tool, the group uses the SharePoint platform with advanced predefined layouts and templates. Before Qlik Sense was introduced, the company locally used an Oracle business intelligence solution, which was seen as too rigid and not agile enough to support the flexibility the company needed for reporting.

After the test period of using Qlik Sense Desktop application, the management realized Qlik is the solution that can help them successfully face their business challenges. By working with BE-terna's BI department the management demonstrated the use of Qlik Sense in the company with live data. The demonstration convinced the owners that Qlik Sense is a good investment.

Only a couple of days needed for the implementation

The company was thrilled by the very short implementation period – from the final definition of business requirements only 5 days were needed for the management to start using the BI tool. Such a short implementation time was made possible by the effective cooperation between BE-terna's BI department and the IT company that provides IT support services to Marche Gostinstvo (back-office software and cash register). A joint team successfully managed to consolidate all databases and tables. To make the new BI tool as effective as possible, the company imported business data from 2012 on and the current business data is imported into the BI system with a single tool.

Qlik Sense is adapted to enable efficient comparison between individual accounts, expenses and revenues, between individual production entities and sales units and selected time periods (hour, day, season). Sales analysis can be performed to the level of an individual product sold. The BI solution is integrated with the document system and the management can see where individual pieces of data in the report come from at any moment (»drill-down« data).

The company sees the user-friendly interface as the main benefit of Qlik Sense – using Qlik Sense is easy and intuitive and each business user can create their own reports by merely clicking. Users’ own creativity or the ability to ask question is the only limitation to the BI solution, meaning Qlik Sense is able to give an answer to every business question.

In addition, business users benefit from independence to add more dimensions to queries and creating customized reports. Another benefit of working with BE-terna as seen by Marche management is the option of additional training offered by BE-terna to end users. The purpose of training courses is to educate end users and provide them with as much knowledge about the software as possible so they can leverage the BI tool to its fullest.

A very professional team that speaks IT and business language combined with a modern and intuitive BI solution was exactly what we needed for our business.

Aleksander Sinkovič Jurca, CFO, Marche Gostinstvo

Solution, adapted to the business needs of the company

Specific additional upgrades were developed and incorporated into the new BI software, such as:

• A detailed overview of the holidays, which have a major impact on the business
• An overview of the motorway traffic volumes in real time, which enables Marche to adapt its offering and minimize waste
  

Custom analyses, adapted to the industry and the company are additionally developed for Marche: an analysis for each restaurant, time period and custom analyses for financial and operational controlling.

Decreased time for reporting and improved business decisions

After several months of using Qlik Sense, the management points out following benefits of the new BI solution:

• Fast and accurate overview of the business in real time – every minute, every hour, every day the company knows how much of each product is sold and written off in each of its 16 restaurants
• The ability to drill-down enables business users to see the origin of the data that’s included in the report
• Significantly decreased time needed to prepare consolidated reports
• Clear visual representation of data and the ability to refresh data within each chart

Business impact of the new BI solution: 4% increase in sales

The company Marche Gostinstvo was able to increase sales by 4% in the industry with a high price pressure and with fixed number of locations. Marche believes that the growth is entirely a result of continuous monitoring of sales across all micro-locations, which enables them to adjust the offering and reduce the amounts of waste. 

With Qlik Sense, Marche management regularly monitors sales across all 16 micro-locations, effectively adjusts supply and reduces the amount of wasted material. With fixed locations and operating in a price-sensitive industry, the company managed to increase sales, and the management believes that this is entirely the result of Qlik Sense, the new business intelligence and analytics tool.

15 years of experience with implementing and developing BI solutions and the intuitive Qlik technology enabled us to complete the implementation in the shortest time possible. To ensure the overall success of the BI tool, an important factor is the ability to adapt the solution to the company’s specific requirements. I believe this is where BE-terna is doing a really good job and it’s why our customers really get what they need from our solutions.

Anže Mis, BI Direcotor, BE-terna Adriatics