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Microsoft SQL Server-based business intelligence
solution gives nationwide express competitive edge in
logistics business
“The Microsoft SQL Server database has proven to be very
stable and reliable. It can easily handle the huge amounts
of information generated by our backend system which
processes about 25,000 shipments daily.”
- Mohd Shukri A. Aziz, Senior Manager, Information &
Communication Technology, Nationwide Express Courier
Services Berhad
Nationwide Express Courier Services Berhad was handicapped
in business decision making because of the inflexibility of
its paper-based business analysis and reporting system. To
remedy the situation, Nationwide Express deployed a business
intelligence solution named BizPoint, which runs on Windows
Server 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server 2000.
BizPoint enables Nationwide Express to establish an
information backbone and central repository for its
analytical, reporting, and broadcasting needs. BizPoint also
increased its agility in decision-making, improved
operational efficiencies and gives Nationwide Express a
strategic edge in the highly competitive logistics industry.
Situation
Since its incorporation in 1985, Nationwide Express
Courier Services Berhad has grown by leaps and bounds to
become one of the leading providers of courier, freight and
logistics services in Malaysia.
The company has built a strategic network of 110 branches
and agents in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei coupled with
alliances with reputable international courier companies.
Nationwide Express is listed on Bursa Malaysia and has about
1,400 employees.
In the intervening years, Nationwide Express has diversified
its business beyond express courier services to freight
forwarding, customised logistics, mail management and
warehousing services. The company’s corporate vision is to
become the premier total logistics business partner in
Malaysia and selected market segments globally. In seeking
to achieve this goal, Nationwide Express saw the need to
leverage on technology in its business operations and
decision-making processes.
To increase its agility in decision-making, monitoring and
improving operational efficiencies, the management realized
it had to drastically improve its business analysis and
reporting system. It was previously relying on paper-based
reports generated from its back-office system which was
keyed into Microsoft Excel to perform the relevant analyses.
Not only was this laborious and inefficient, the inherent
weakness was an inability to perform drill-down analyses on
the fly, and difficulty in comparing historical and present
figures.
“Our predicament was that users spent more time compiling
the information, leaving them with little time for
analyzing.”
“This delayed the decision making process and affected the
customers and the organization,” says Mohd Shukri A. Aziz,
Senior Manager, Information & Communi-cation Technology at
Nationwide Express.
This meant that by the time the reports reached the top
management, the information had already become lagging
indicators. “In our industry, the business environment is
very dynamic. We need to have very timely analyses and
reports to make the right decisions. So when a report comes
out a month later, it has already become academic,” he
explains.
The limitations of the current system prompted Nationwide
Express to deploy a suitable business intelligence (BI)
application with key performance index (KPI)-based reporting
capabilities.
“The new BI solution had to allow users themselves to easily
develop new analyses. We wanted to empower the end users to
have full control without having to rely on IT (department)
to develop the analyses,” says Mohd Shukri.
Solution
Nationwide Express opted for a Windows-based solution
developed by Microsoft Certified Partner Accelteam Sdn Bhd.
Named BizPoint, the solution runs on Windows Server 2003
with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 as its data store.
The system was successfully rolled out within two months in
early 2006. A key component of the process was the loading
of the company’s historical business data for the previous
three years into SQL Server. Data from the company’s back
office system is transferred into BizPoint on a regular
basis.
According to Mohd Shukri, the implement-ation proceeded
smoothly. He adds that SQL Server easily handles data
generated from the 25,000-plus shipments handled daily by
Nationwide Express.
With BizPoint in place, Nationwide Express has established
an information backbone and central repository for its
analytical, reporting, and broadcasting needs. The solution
now enables key data and information from various business
areas to be accessible from a single location.
Users utilizing BizPoint to create insights from business
intelligence analytics can communicate and share it through
performance dashboards. And because BizPoint is web-based,
the management can access the system even when they are out
of the office.
The solution provides enterprise-wide visibility and
accurate information, whereby information is centralized on
a common data model. “This provides our key management,
marketing and sales staff with the capability to analyze
sales performance by region, branches, customer and
industry, type of services and so on,” says Mohd Shukri.
He adds that BizPoint improves the decision making process
by shortening the time needed to gather data for analysis by
about 50 per cent.
Nationwide Express had no qualms choosing the Windows Server
platform as its back-end operations and key desktop
applications are all Windows-based systems. For example, its
Track and Trace, Fleet Management, and Document Management
systems run SQL Server as its datastore. “We have basically
a unified standard for our IT environment. SQL Server fits
in perfectly,” he says.
Mohd Shukri says the Windows platform is like a de facto
standard which provides the best value for money. “It is
platform with a lower cost of ownership in the long run,” he
says. “With SQL Server, you don’t need to pay yearly
maintenance unlike say IBM’s DB2 database,” he adds.
He adds that resources skilled in Microsoft technologies
were also readily available in the market. Mohd Shukri also
takes assurance from the strong support provided by
Microsoft for independent software vendors such as Accelteam.
“This gives us the confidence that we will get good support
for our Windows-based business applications,” he adds.
Benefits
Enhances Decision Making Process
The BizPoint solution has increased the management’s agility in decision-making,
monitoring and controlling operational efficiencies. Previously, the analyses
and reports took too long to reach the management, rendering it virtually
academic.
Now, the information from BizPoint is available almost in real time and
presented in graphical visualizations that are easy to interpret. “The optimized
data repository and the capability to perform fast queries on revenue and volume
information will enhance the managers’ efficiency on proactive monitoring,” says
Mohd Shukri.
“The users can now drill down to various levels. The beauty of BizPoint is that
it gives you multiple dimensions at a glance,” he adds.
“The top management can now make sound business decisions based on facts and
figures, and make it faster too,” he adds. This means the management will be
more agile, and able to respond quickly to operational events and changing
business conditions, he says.
Promotes Productivity
The implementation of BizPoint has increased employee productivity and
efficiency, and reduced the workload of the IT support staff. “The end users are
now equipped with friendly yet powerful tools which enable them to spend less
time compiling the data, and giving them more time to do analysis instead,” says
Mohd Shukri.
With BizPoint, there is no longer a need to print out reports from the back
office system and re-key it into a spreadsheet for analyses. Information from
the back-end can now be transferred directly into BizPoint.
“BizPoint is such a user friendly application that the end users can be
empowered to create and run queries such as revenue analysis. They are no longer
dependent on IT personnel to develop the reports,” he adds.
“As our business is quite dynamic, new reports and analysis are needed from time
to time. And BizPoint enables users to develop new analyses with ease and save
them for future reference.”
“With this tool, their imagination can run wild! They can generate whatever
reports they want themselves.” This also frees the technical team from compiling
the reports and they can now “focus on real technical issues such as database
and system performance tuning.”
He adds that the SQL Server database was comparatively easy to manage and
support. The implementation of BizPoint also did not require the IT department
to increase its headcount, he points out.
Highly Stable and Reliable
With SQL Server as its data warehouse, BizPoint has no problems in handling the
mountain of data generated by almost 750,000 shipments every month.
“The SQL Server database has proven to be very stable and reliable. It can
easily handle the huge amount of information generated by our backend system
which processes about 25,000 shipments daily,” Mohd Shukri says.
“The SQL Server database has the capacity to even handle financial related
transactions. In relation to financial industry, our volumes are considered
small. So we have no worries about hitting the limit,” he adds.
He also confirms the performance of the SQL Server database under BizPoint has
been good. This concurs with the company’s experience with its other
applications such as the Track and Trace, Fleet Management, and Document
Management systems which also utilize SQL Server. “We have no complaints about
SQL Server’s stability and performance,” he adds.
Competitive Advantages
The powerful business intelligence solution gives Nationwide Express a strategic
edge in the highly competitive logistics industry. By loading three years worth
of historical business data into BizPoint, the manage-ment is able to do the
necessary analyses to identify operational and business trends.
BizPoint has enabled the company to adjust to changing market conditions, take
corrective measures as well as tap business opportunities. Mohd Shukri is
confident the new system will help “our business grow and expand.”
The SQL Server powered solution has provided Nationwide Express with a powerful
analytical and reporting tool to achieve its goal of becoming the premier total
logistics business partner in Malaysia and selected market segments globally. | Overview
Country: Malaysia
Industry: Logistics
Customer Profile
Nationwide Express is one of the leading providers of
courier, freight and logistics services in Malaysia. It has network of 110
branches and agents in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.
Business Situation
To increase its agility in decision-making, monitoring and
improving operational efficiencies, Nationwide Express
decided to upgrade its paper-based its business analysis and
reporting system.
Solution
Nationwide Express deployed BizPoint, a Windows-based
business intelligence solution which runs on Windows Server
2003 and Microsoft SQL Server 2000.
Benefits - Enhances decision making process
- Promotes productivity
- Highly stable and reliable
- Competitive advantages
For More Information
To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com/malaysia
For other case studies in this series, visit www.microsoft.com/malaysia/business/casestudies
For more information about Accelteam’s products
and services, call +603 2711 3282 or visit the Web site at: www.accelteam.com
For more information about Nationwide Express’ services, call +6(03) 5163
3333 or visit the Web site at: www.nationwide2u.com |