Costcutter

Challenge

  • Costcutter are a retail organisation and the reporting application uses millions of rows of sales data.
  • The legacy analysis cube was now taking 18 hours to build making daily reporting impossible.
  • Daily sales reporting was a necessity for the business to understand how it was performing.
  • The user community needed to be self sufficient and already used IBM Cognos reporting.
  • An alternative needed to be found that could be swiftly adopted by the business users.

Solution

  • Simpson Associates recommended the use of Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services to build the high volume cube.
  • Microsoft SQL Server was already in use as a database engine, making its' use for reporting extremely cost effective.
  • The existing IBM Cognos front end was retained, thereby maintaining user familiarity.
  • Users had the option to use Excel as a native front end, eliminating training costs.
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Benefits

  • Sales Analysis application now takes only 35 minutes to build.
  • The application is more stable; the process is more reliable and less prone to fail.
  • Microsoft SQL Server effectively provided free business intelligence.
  • Existing users required no additional training.
  • New users were able to use their Excel skills.
  • An existing asset, SQL Server, was used to provide additional Return on Investment.
Nick Evans
Do you have a question? Call 01904 234 510 or Email Nick
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