The customer is a large sales, trading and retail company dealing with consumers, business customers and business partners. Its strategic alignment is clearly directed towards innovation and services. With more than 4,000 employees and a product range made up of a variety of products and services and offers of different third-party suppliers, the customer places special demands on an efficient system that supports precision strategic corporate management from the very first day.

Initial situation

The customer that was recently spun off from the group at the start of the project requires its own central database system that allows for the necessary proof of sales and commission and the revenue accounting in the form of variable settlement, and in addition with daily figures constitutes an effective management control instrument.

The challenge

• Extreme short window
  System to be up and running within 3 months
• Definition of requirements
  Drawing up complete requirement profiles by www Bitmanager AG because the customer did not have an independent EDP department in place at the start of the project
• Coherent quality
  Detailed documentation during the period in line with development so that new employees can understand it at a later date
• External computing centre with infrastructure
  Setting up an entire computing centre including the fundamental infrastructure.
• Greatest possible flexibility and resourcefulness
  Guaranteeing the ability to react quickly to the customer’s campaign parameters

Implementation – from the ACTUAL to the TARGET situation

• Meeting dates
  The system got off to a good start on 01.11.2004.
• External computing centre
  The external computing centre including Oracle, SAND and Application Server was set up by way of providing appropriate rooms and infrastructure
• The system satisfies the defined requirements
  Various standards (Java) and own development tools and a special development environment create the basis for the development. The technical outline concept is made up of a newly implemented data warehouse (SAND Analytic Server), a web-based client server system with HTTPS clients (IBM-Websphere, Java and Oracle 9i-RAC) and an Oracle database. In addition an authorisation system is set up that allows for individual access rights by defining user profiles. Users register with usernames and passwords or via personal SmartCard identification. As the customer’s new “basic system�?, it boasts the following performance features:
  
  • Revenue accounting
    In respect of dealings with partners and external suppliers, revenues can be accounted in detail by taking into account sales as well as commission. This allows for a well-established settlement in every respect.
  • Target agreements with variable remuneration
    The new system means any number of individual, team-based and qualitative targets can be set up which in total amount to 100%. The respective targets can be linked to any number of individually weighted products. The variable content can be calculated on a quarterly basis (peak settlement) or by way of monthly settlements. Updating the achievement of targets on a daily basis.
  • Calculating the variable salary
    The variable salary can be calculated on a quarterly basis (peak settlement) or by way of monthly settlements. Updating achievement of targets on a daily basis.
  • Compatibility
    The system allows for the linking of shop tills as input suppliers and the incorporation of various systems of partners and external suppliers for data recording and consolidation. This interface is used to transfer the data of each individual till directly in the system.
  • Complexity & speed
    The enormous quantity and complexity of calculations for some 4,000 employees is guaranteed by using a data warehouse on the basis of a SAND Analytic Server. Compared with the relational databases, this vectored database system offers a 60% to 70% space saving and considerably greater performance. Therefore all the sales data of a quarter can be evaluated daily at great speed, aggregated and compressed in a single value – the achievement of targets. The data warehouse is accessed either via SQL or via the interfaces ODBC, OLE-DB or JDBC, in which case each standard OLAP tool can be used for analysing and preparing data.
  • Analysis & reporting
    Thanks to various analysis and reporting functionalities, the data entered in the data warehouse provide key details on the strategic company management. Management reports, viewable levels of target achievement, drill-down and drill-up and many more evaluation functions form the basis for key managerial decisions and targeted marketing measures. The sales or distribution campaigns can therefore be geared towards generated reports. They can be subsequently settled and the specific success can even be quantified. The system therefore supports all functions of an effective management and marketing tool.

The result

The whole work performed by just 10 project team members! The system was successfully put into productive operation on the due date on 01.11.2004, and since then has enjoyed an unusually high level of acceptance – by employees and management alike. While sales employees can view their services directly in the system, the management benefits from the valuable daily data, which can be evaluated directly after the close of business of the shops via the data warehouse and can be used as a strategic company controlling instrument.