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WD-40 keeps business running smoothly with QlikView
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
Applicable Industries
- Consumer Goods
Applicable Functions
- Procurement
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Predictive Replenishment
- Supply Chain Visibility
Services
- Data Science Services
The Challenge
WD-40, a global consumer products organization, was facing challenges in analyzing reported data and gaining insights into customer behavior. The company was relying on hard copy weekly reports to provide crucial business detail, which was putting increasing pressure on the IT department to produce more meaningful sales information in a user-friendly, real-time application. The traditional reports created by the company’s previous ERP system were both costly to produce and lacked important detail. A data analysis tool was needed to support WD-40’s growing business and to ease the pressure on IT resources. The company also needed applications that would support, speed up and simplify financial reporting to its parent in the US, a logistics application for better order-to-delivery efficiency and pan-European sales analysis for proactive management.
About The Customer
WD-40 Company is a global consumer products organization, renowned for its range of popular household brands, which are found under the sink, in the garage and in the toolboxes of homes throughout the world. Its products are now sold in more than 160 countries worldwide. The company recorded sales of $242.5 million in 2004. WD-40 has grown to more than 254 employees worldwide, employing 42 at its UK headquarters in Milton Keynes.
The Solution
WD-40 deployed QlikView to 35 employees in less than two weeks. QlikView now supports the company’s sales, supply chain, and finance departments, enabling WD-40 to deliver data reports faster, reduce the time between order and delivery, and streamline pan-European sales analyses. Plus, with QlikView Server, WD-40 easily handles the large data volume of 500,000 order lines of point-of-sale records. The software integrated easily with WD-40’s source system, Scala, and simply read in data from the database and held it there ready for analysis, as and when it was needed. WD-40’s IT department did not require any specialist training. The team was able to identify the data it needed to access easily via QlikView.
Operational Impact
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