EMBRACING TECH FOR EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT

The world is drowning in data. As organisations across the globe attempt to manage these massive datasets, varying sources and formats emerge. This leads to disparate data, management silos and questionable reporting based on varying data.

KYOCERA Document Solutions Inc., forming one of KYOCERA’s businesses worldwide, researches and develops KYOCERA monochrome and colour printers, multifunctional products, wide format devices, intelligent software solutions, as well as parts and supplies. The company operates on multiple systems, with innumerable internal and external data inputs.

According to Ian Dury, Business Process Manager at KYOCERA Document Solutions South Africa, this led to limited data access and disparate data views. “Only a few people have access to the data that they work on. Those that don’t have access can’t see the big picture,” confirms Dury. As a result, the connection between departments was tenuous and the understanding of how they correlate with each other limited. From decision making to reporting, every function that relies on data is made more challenging in this environment.

Having recently moved onto a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, KYOCERA felt that Qlik Sense was the right tool to help the business gain greater insights from its data. The solution was implemented by South Africa Qlik Master Reseller. “Throughout this process, my focus has been to consider improvements in KPIs for all departments, company-wide,” said Dury. “From what I’ve seen, the platform effectively allows for management by Qlik. We don’t have to have a meeting to evaluate how staff are doing or call them to get a report – it’s all there, on the tool.”

With organisation-wide acceptance of the tool, a number of KYOCERA staff have attended the Qlik Sense training course. “They use the data given, then they create their own apps,” adds Dury. “The process to develop is becoming faster all the time, and the staff know what mindset we’re going for.” Although some change management was required in the move from QlikView to Qlik Sense, the Kyocera team is now privy to a platform that updates every 15 minutes – rather than once a day. This offers greater productivity and better decision-making power.

Dury confirms that the company now operates according to the saying; “I’ll check on Qlik”. It is the business’ foremost decision-making tool, used to: determine what stock is coming in from Europe and when it will arrive; stock management; promotions, guided by reliable information from logistics so the marketing team can make sound decisions; sales based on real information; and manage how changes in one department can impact another.

While the company has experienced many benefits from the Qlik implementation over the years, there are some that stand out for Dury. As the business goes through the harrowing auditing process annually, its auditors would often take issue with the recognition of revenue for its services base.

“We’d routinely collect meter readings and bill according to the readings taken, but the business had no idea what the target number was that it should be collecting. We may have gotten a thousand, but how many were we supposed to get? If every single meter is not billed for, it’s a service that’s being provided at a zero cost,” recalls Dury.

With Qlik, KYOCERA developed an app that stores historical billing per month, per machine and details whether a machine is currently on contract or active. “Now we had a number to work towards. We can focus on the machines that hadn’t been billed within the last six months. Through the use of this app, we billed an estimated additional five millions clicks - and that elevated number has remained the constant.”

“This is an app that actually drove action. We saw 4000 odd machines, we realised some were inactive, even though (according to the system) they were active. We are now far more capable to manage all of the machines accurately, bill accordingly, and increase activity.” As such, the app continues to deliver return on investment. “In the first month we got our money back, and now the auditors understand the value, and are happy,” concludes Dury. 

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Boilerplates:

About Qlik 

Qlik® delivers intuitive platform solutions for self-service data visualization, guided analytics applications, embedded analytics and reporting to approximately 40,000 customers worldwide. Companies of all sizes, across all industries and geographies, use Qlik® solutions to visualize and explore information, generate insight and make better decisions. At Qlik, we optimize Business Intelligence (BI) by harnessing the collective intelligence of people across an organization. We focus on empowering people—by enabling everyone in an organization to see the whole story that lives within their data.

About South Africa Qlik Master Reseller

South Africa Qlik Master Reseller (previously known as QlikView SA) has been a member of the EOH group of companies since 1 July 2014, facilitating a great partnership that aims to accelerate growth for Qlik in Southern Africa directly or through its specialized Partner channel.  SA Qlik MR’s portfolio of products meets customers' growing needs from reporting and self-service visual analysis to guided, embedded and custom analytics. Over 1800 customers rely on Qlik solutions to gain meaning out of information from varied sources, exploring the hidden relationships within data that lead to insights that ignite good ideas.

These solutions bridge the gap between traditional BI solutions and inadequate spreadsheet applications. The in-memory associative search technology that Qlik pioneered, pioneered the self-service BI category, allowing users to explore information freely rather than being confined to a predefined path of questions. Appropriate from SMB to the largest global enterprise, Qlik’s self-service analysis can be deployed with data governance in days or weeks. The platform’s app-driven model works with existing BI solutions, offering an immersive mobile and social, collaborative experience. Headquartered in Radnor, Pennsylvania, Qlik does business in more than 100 countries with over 40,000 customers globally. For more information, please visit www.saqlik.com.

About Kyocera:

KYOCERA Document Solutions Inc., forming one of KYOCERA’s businesses worldwide, researches and develops KYOCERA monochrome and colour printers, multifunctional products, wide format devices, intelligent software solutions, as well as parts and supplies. Headquartered in Midrand, KYOCERA Document Solutions South Africa is a country level subsidiary of KYOCERA Document Solutions Inc. and is responsible for the sales and marketing of KYOCERA printers and document solutions throughout Southern Africa.

KYOCERA Document Solutions South Africa is renowned for its tailor-made document solutions that provide a perfect blend of premium products, software solutions and professional services that increase an organisation’s workflow efficiency, enhance employee productivity, minimise environmental impact and significantly reduce operating costs. A key differentiator for the KYOCERA brand is the primary focus on overall value as opposed to only considering the initial acquisition price.

Its solutions portfolio and MDS division help customers to reduce costs and environmental impact at the same time as improving the efficiency and reliability of common business processes. KYOCERA pursues unrivalled innovation, professional service excellence and offers environmentally friendly document solutions that make a significant difference to businesses. For more information, please visit: www.kyoceradocumentsolutions.co.za.