Atlantic Lottery Corporation
The Atlantic Lottery Corporation Picks a Winner with Microsoft SQL Server 2000
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Company Overview
Many Canadians buy lottery tickets, but few realize the positive impact lottery gaming has on Canadian businesses and residents. In the Atlantic Canada provinces alone, more than 3,700 retailers, from convenience stores to gas stations, rely on lottery ticket sales as a critical revenue stream. Profits from lottery sales also help fund essential provincial programs and services.
Business Challenge
In Atlantic Canada, provincial gaming is managed by the Atlantic Lottery Corporation (ALC). The ALC manages retail tickets sales and works with shareholders to distribute funding across the provinces. Its sales team constantly looks for ways to increase sales for retail partners, and in turn secure additional money for provincial programs.
For years, sales reps, called Business Development Representatives (BDR), had struggled to provide retail customers with clear data to illustrate sales performance and help identify areas of growth. Compiling basic year-to-date data reports required BDRs to merge several Microsoft® Office Excel 2003 reports for each customer. With sales representatives serving about 100 retail customers each, compiling reports was too complex and time consuming to do regularly.
“It’s always a challenge to compile sales data in a way that helps our retail customers understand the benefits of lottery sales and identify opportunities to expand their business,” says Joel Irvine, director of sales, retail channel, ALC. “Our vision was to find a more efficient and professional way for our BDRs to share critical sales data with customers.”
To accomplish this goal, ALC began searching for a technology solution that would aggregate sales data and present it in an easy-to-use format for its sales team. The organization’s IT department also wanted a solution that could be expanded to address data reporting challenges experienced by other divisions in the company.
“We rated solutions based on whether they addressed the specific pain points our sales team experienced and could also help improve reporting processes for other business units across the company,” says Jon Aydinova, chief architect, ALC. “Our goal was to demonstrate how IT solutions can drive business value across the enterprise.”
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Solution
After researching competitive solutions, ALC found that a solution based on Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 would best fit its reporting requirements. The ALC IT team enlisted the help of Microsoft Services to assist them through the planning, testing and deployment of the solution.
“We worked with ALC to find the solution to address their business need for enhanced analysis and reporting capabilities,” says Mitch van Huuksloot, Microsoft Services. “The SQL Server Analysis Services and Excel-based solution now provides the team with the ability to slice and dice reporting on product sales and view information in a familiar format.”
SQL Server Analysis Services allowed the ALC to automatically integrate sales data from several different applications, reducing the amount of time-consuming manual aggregation tasks previously required by the sales team. The reports use a combination of custom table and pivot charts to display the sales data to the BDR and the retailer. By leveraging Excel, part of the Microsoft Office System, the team was able to develop data drop down and product type selectors in a simple, easy to view format that was familiar to end users.
“The SQL Server solution merges data from four different reports into a single snapshot so the retailer and BDR can quickly identify and discuss sales trends,” says Scott Langille, Business Development Representative, ALC. “SQL Server’s ability to easily aggregate data from disparate applications was one of its main selling points for us.”
SQL Server Analysis Services also provided critical back-end data analysis capabilities. The online analysis processing (OLAP) technology in Analysis Services allowed the field team to download data cubes for off-line analysis while traveling.
“Enabling our field team to download OLAP cubes for off-line analysis with customers is invaluable,” says Langille. “The OLAP functionality of Analysis Services helped the BDRs to provide professional service to every customer across the Atlantic Provinces.”
On the front-end, a digital dashboard presented a summary of the sales report for simple analysis. The solution leveraged Excel spreadsheets to provide BDRs and customers with more advanced data analysis capabilities in an intuitive format.
“Microsoft’s SQL Server database enabled us to build a tool that is complex in the background, but provides easy-to-use reporting functionality,” says Aydinova. “We are able to separate specific subsets of sales data from our data warehouse and allow our BDRs to easily access and analyze the information during customer meetings.”
Working together, the ALC and Microsoft Services fully deployed the SQL Server solution in just three months.
Business Benefits
Since deploying SQL Server 2000, ALC has noticed several key benefits, including increased staff efficiency, improved customer service, and enhanced insight into sales performance. The solution was so successful that ALC extended the deployment to help improve financial reporting capabilities across the organization.
Increased staff efficiency
ALC’s main purpose in implementing SQL Server was to increase the efficiency of its BDRs. Before deploying the SQL Server solution, the BDR team was unable to present sales data reports to retail customers without first merging disparate sales reports – a timely and complicated process.
With SQL Server, the BDR team is now able to quickly present year-to-date sales reports to each customer, saving the team hours and improving overall customer service. The data allows the customer and BDR to analyze trends, including sales by product, geography, store type and other specific categories.
“With just a few mouse clicks, our BDRs can access customized sales reports for each customer,” says Langille. “Before SQL Server, compiling sales reports for each customer would have been so time consuming, the BDR team would have found it virtually impossible.”
Improved customer service
Before the SQL Server deployment, ALC customers were in the dark about the ongoing performance of lottery sales. Without customized sales data, it was difficult for customers and BDRs to understand the impact of lottery sales at each retail location, or identify opportunities to increase sales of certain product lines.
With SQL Server, the BDRs are now able to highlight sales trends for their customers by providing current and historical data. This insight helps customers understand the amount of revenue generated by lottery sales, compare performance with other retailers across Atlantic Canada, and identify ways to grow their businesses.
“SQL Server allows our BDR team to provide a more professional level of service to our retail customers,” says Irvine. “The sales reports let the BDR team act as consultants, helping our customers identify new sales opportunities.”
Enhanced insight into sales performance
Although the SQL Server solution was originally intended to help the BDR field team, ALC has also found the tool useful for other team members, particularly regional managers.
ALC regional managers manage the BDR field team and monitor product sales. The reporting capabilities of SQL Server 2000 allow regional managers to gain in-depth knowledge about the sales performance of each product line.
“Before we implemented SQL Server it was difficult for regional managers to have a clear picture of product sales,” says Irvine. “SQL Server allows them to see very specific sales performance data that wasn’t possible before.”
Improved financial reporting
Shortly after the initial rollout of SQL Server 2000, ALC team extended the solution to help address the financial reporting of ALC departments. With more than 30 departments in the company, the finance team found it challenging to gather separate financial reports from each division. Consolidating the reports had become too time-consuming for the team to complete on a monthly basis.
Using SQL Server on the back-end, the ALC IT team developed a solution that incorporated Microsoft InfoPath® 2003 and Microsoft Windows® SharePoint® Services. InfoPath allows the financial team to develop a single form for gathering financial data and help ensure high data quality. With Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint® Services, the team is able to post the report online and automatically update the SQL Server database when changes are made.
“The solution we created with SharePoint and InfoPath drastically improved the expense reporting process across our company,” says Aydinova. “We effectively eliminated the manual process of consolidating departmental financial reports and improved data quality. This is another example of how technology can directly impact operating performance and drive business value.”
Microsoft Windows Server System
Microsoft® Windows Server System is a comprehensive, integrated, and interoperable server infrastructure that helps reduce the complexity and costs of building, deploying, connecting, and operating agile business solutions. Windows Server System helps customers create new value for their business through the strategic use of their IT assets. With the Windows Server operating system as its foundation, Windows Server System delivers dependable infrastructure for data management and analysis; enterprise integration; customer, partner, and employee portals; business process automation; communications and collaboration; and core IT operations including security, deployment, and systems management.
For more information about Windows Server System, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem
For More Information
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For more information about the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, call 1-800-561-3942 or visit the Web site at: www.alc.ca
