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QlikView BI solution achieves heavenly results for York Minster
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization
Applicable Industries
- Buildings
- Education
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Predictive Replenishment
- Process Control & Optimization
Services
- Data Science Services
The Challenge
York Minster, a world-renowned cathedral, is a large organization with around 150 employees and 500 volunteer workers. The operational costs of the Minster are incredibly high, amounting to £9 per minute, 24 hours a day. As a registered charity, it depends on donations and visitors fees to survive. This means that the Minster has had to become increasingly aware of its income streams in order to improve margins and keep reinvesting in its many community and regeneration projects. The IT department is relatively small, with two employees including IT Manager David Wilkinson. Wilkinson also acts as Assistant to the Chief Accountant, and it is this dual role that brought him to QlikView. “When we started charging for entry into the Minster, we needed to be able to analyse visitor trends and tills data. We also wanted to identify where we were improving, especially how much income was coming through from GiftAid and the sale of guide books,” says Wilkinson.
About The Customer
York Minster is a world-renowned cathedral, famous for its impressive Gothic architecture and visited by thousands of worshippers and sightseers every year. The Minster is a deceptively large organisation, with around 150 employees and 500 volunteer workers belonging to departments such as Music, Visitor Services, Finance, and one of the largest groups, The Stoneyard, made up of craftspeople, such as masons and joiners who look after the fabric of the Minster. York Minster incurs operational costs of an incredible £9 per minute, 24 hours a day, and as a registered charity it depends on donations and visitors fees to survive. This means that the Minster has had to become increasingly aware of its income streams in order to improve margins and keep reinvesting in its many community and regeneration projects.
The Solution
York Minster chose QlikView to help them make sense of their till data and financial information. Their IT provider CIBER was on hand during implementation. QlikView enabled York Minster to identify that there was scope to improve the promotion of certain types of admission charges including Gift Aid and guide books. When the till transactions were visualised, showing revenue by staff and by time, the Minster made the decision to include sales prompts on tills for these items so that they could measure the difference accurately. In addition to the reporting structure put in place for York Minster Revealed, and for reporting on till activity, QlikView has also been utilised for reporting on financial ledgers and job costings. Wilkinson is impressed with QlikView’s versatility: “It is a very useful tool, which enables us to analyse info within our Sage Line 500 databases and get quick answers when we need them. Being able to interrogate the data without having to create complex spreadsheets is such a time saver.”
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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