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FE Global Electronics improves profitability with QlikView
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
Applicable Industries
- Electronics
- Retail
Applicable Functions
- Sales & Marketing
- Logistics & Transportation
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Supply Chain Visibility
- Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
Services
- Data Science Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
FE Global Electronics, a leading electronic components distributor in the pan-Asia region, faced challenges due to its broad distribution coverage and complex web of supplier and customer relationships. The company had trouble getting consistent, timely, and visual information from its legacy systems and other data sources, in addition to its SAP ERP system. This lack of timely and correct information made managing inventory a major headache. The organization faced several problems of increasing and aging inventory, identifying and managing demand and consumption patterns, and managing obsolescence. Managers lacked timely and enough information on receivables aging, which affected cash flow and increased bad debt. Compounding the problem, the company had been unable to get its A/R information in foreign currencies to understand exposure and minimize currency exchange losses.
About The Customer
Established in 1990, FE Global Electronics is one of the leading electronic components distributors in the pan-Asia region, spanning 10 countries (China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand) with more than 45 regional offices. The company provides products and value-added services of material management solutions, design and development to customers in information technology, consumer electronics and telecommunications. The business runs at very competitive margins, so cash flow is critical to its success. FE Global has undergone lightningspeed growth, from $5 million in 1991 to $550 million in 2004. It has more than 700 experienced staff worldwide and deals with more than 80 major suppliers and 1,000 active customers.
The Solution
FE Global embarked on a Business Intelligence (BI) initiative to better analyze – and therefore improve – performance. The team looked at the traditional OLAP-based products, but selected QlikView to extract and consolidate data from their various business sources and provide a common view of the various business Key Performance Indicators to their decision makers. QlikView would eliminate this problem through consolidated reporting – extracting data from the sales, financial and inventory modules in the company’s ERP systems, and budgeting and forecasting information from spreadsheets – with easy to understand visual elements like graphs, charts and dashboard gauges. Moreover, the resulting information would be timely enough to provide actionable views of the business. The team developed “proof of concepts” for each functional area to help guide the users along.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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