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OFS Brands Equips Mobile Users with Analytic Dashboards on Any Device
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization
Applicable Functions
- Quality Assurance
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Predictive Quality Analytics
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
- System Integration
- Training
The Challenge
OFS Brands, a leading supplier of contract furniture, was facing a challenge with its reporting process. The company used to send standard reports to its sales force via email. However, these reports were not interactive and did not allow for ad hoc queries, data visualization, or drill-downs. If a sales representative needed specific information, they would have to request the IT department to develop a custom report. This process was not efficient and put a heavy load on the IT department. The company wanted to give the sales team more control and reduce the custom reporting load on the IT department.
About The Customer
OFS Brands, Inc. is a family-owned corporation that is committed to providing socially responsible furniture and logistic solutions through better design, excellent performance, and innovative products and services. The company is steeped in the rich furniture-making traditions of southern Indiana. Most of OFS Brands’ products are sold through dealerships managed by a national sales force. A 25-person IT department supports the computing and information needs of this active sales team, along with approximately 1,700 other employees. The IT department often gets involved with strategic initiatives to align field activities with corporate objectives.
The Solution
To address the challenge, OFS Brands implemented WebFOCUS Mobile, a business intelligence (BI) and analytics platform from Information Builders. This platform allows users to access and analyze information from any smartphone or tablet. The company's sales dashboard includes about two dozen interactive reports, complete with pie charts, line charts, and parameterized fields that permit ad hoc query and drill-downs. The Top Ten report lists the top dealers, brands, and products of the week. It’s easy to filter data by region, customer service rep, shipment priority, order type, and other variables. Integrated mapping functionality lets people visualize the data geographically, with distinct colors to depict sales trends. The company also uses WebFOCUS to create a tag cloud for analyzing quality control issues. This is an effective way to isolate popular topics in a large volume of textual data.
Operational Impact
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