Replace Qlik with SAP BusinessObjects
The Client
About
DPS Ltd
Social, ethical and environmentally responsible fresh produce suppliers DPS was established 40 years ago, working then with just a handful of regions. Today it supplies the UK’s largest supermarket chains and sources from over 40 countries, from as far afield as New Zealand to around the corner in Kent. In today’s market, fresh produce no longer takes weeks to deliver, and once-exotic fruit, such as mangoes, are now a household fruit. As times change, DPS works hard to stay on top of evolving tastes.
Partnering with the best growers across both hemispheres means that DPS is able to meet demand for consistent, high quality fruit throughout the year. Continually striving to minimise the distance from farm to fruit bowl so that all of their produces arrives looking as fresh as when they were picked.
Understanding the Problem
The Challenge
DPS fruit can travel anywhere from 11 to 11,000 miles. Whether bringing Sharon Fruit from South Africa, or cherries from Chile, everything possible is done to pick, pack, and deliver the best possible produce. The company’s lean and direct model means that customers pay no unnecessary costs.
DPS prides itself on full traceability and value food safety and security. To achieve these goals, the Management Team realised it needed more effective insight into all business processes. Historically, DPS carried a heavy burden with the manual administration of sales data and forecasts, plus was also reliant on Excel data entry and manipulation to produce its management reporting. This was time consuming and ineffective.
We had a requirement for more and more accurate information across the business, from financial, to technical, to operational, from both suppliers and customers. We also needed to schedule information and email reports and analysis to strict deadlines. Due to the nature of the business, ethical audits are a high priority, so this reporting process needed to be streamlined to help the business grow. Another requirement was the integration of supplier data into our own ERP system and for external stakeholders to access the data.Business Systems and IT Manager, DPS
The DPS ‘wish-list’ included:
Replace Qlik – DPS prides itself on the highest standards of supplying hard-to-transport fruit, such as stone fruits and berries. It needs to be fresh and it is easily damaged in transit from its various suppliers around the world. Each supermarket has different tolerance levels and its own process by which it checks the fruits’ quality. This process was historically reported upon via Qlik which DPS wanted to replace with a more business oriented solution, enabling DPS to be much more self-sufficient.
Audit Dashboard for Tesco – The DPS team of auditors visit suppliers around the world and report upon their packing processes. This information is critical to determine the quality of the fruit. An auditing dashboard with its visual output was therefore a key requirement to understand the entire supply chain’s performance at a glance.
Automate Companywide KPI updates – DPS report on 140 different corporate metrics. Executive and regulatory reports are driven by Finance and Sales. DPS needed a way of improving the time consuming process of updating these KPIs.
The Solution
Making it Work
Utilising SAP BusinessObjects® and SAP BusinessObjects Data Services, Codestone helped DPS implement a solution to discover, cleanse and integrate its disparate data to make it available for fast real-time analysis. This enabled DPS to:
- BOOST PRODUCTIVITY AND CUT COSTS with a single solution for data quality and integration
- MAKE SMARTER BUSINESS DECISIONS based on trusted information
- GAIN NEW PROCESS EFFICIENCIES with one version of the truth across the entire business
- REDUCE RISK with consistent, high quality information
- RETAIN AND WIN CUSTOMERS with beautiful, interactive dashboards, giving customers easy access to information they didn’t have before
This project has been a key part in our process of continuous improvement. Part of it has been an exercise in ensuring that customers like Tesco, are seeing us drive their dashboard reporting and analysis forward. Even though the dashboards presented to customers are more about top-line information and KPIs, it is clear that the data is available should they need to see more detail. This project has inspired and increased our customer confidence in our delivery excellence. The solution is assuring and deepening our relationships with key customers.Global Technical Compliance and Due Diligence Manager
We believe that the SAP BusinessObjects dashboarding and clear visibility of data, serves to fire up our customers’ imagination. We will continue to work with Codestone and SAP to evolve our Business Intelligence, analytics and data visualisation as the landscape continually changes.
Future-ready digital transformation
starts now.
Ready to talk about what digital business transformation can do for your business, or just looking for some more information? Get in touch here.