SAP Business Objects to Improve Business Insight
The Client
About
High Street TV
High Street TV is a multi-channel retail business operating in the UK and internationally. One of the UK’s fastest-growing companies, as recognised by The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 and International Track 200, High Street TV was founded in 2008 and now employs over 130 people.
High Street TV is everywhere with products available in 69 countries and being bought via their shopping channels, website, call center, on Amazon and eBay or in-store at over 9,000 outlets including well-known high-street retailers such as John Lewis, Argos, Tesco, ASDA, Selfridges and Boots.
Understanding the Problem
The Challenge
Historically, the vast majority of the business reporting was via the heavy utilisation of static spreadsheets. Many people within the business relied on data from different sources which led to conflicting figures being reported to the Management Team. “Live” information was unavailable and reports could only be generated when the report developer was in the office and had time available. In addition, High Street TV had a reporting ‘wish-list’ which included:
- Secure user access from anywhere
- Easy to use and available on mobile devices
- Consistent figures throughout the business – one version of the truth
- The ability to combine multiple datasets into the same report or dashboard
- Excellent, reliable technical support & advice
Generally I don’t have any issues using SAP BusinessObjects, as it is very intuitive. However, the few times that I have needed support, I’ve been able to get fast resolutions from the Codestone Support Team. I thought the “quick start” training Codestone provided was particularly useful. It covered everything I needed to get up and running confidently and was run at a pace that suited how I like to work. The trainer obviously knew her stuff.
The Solution
Making it Work
Codestone recommended SAP BusinessObjects® as it enabled anyone in the organisation to access insightful reports, dashboards & analysis, plus easy drill down for detailed insight. Business users now have access to one version of the ‘Business Truth’ in an intuitive, easy to use selfserve environment. SAP BusinessObjects® has knitted together High Street TV’s data, enabling business users to gain fast insight and react quickly to market conditions.
The Management Team can now make critical business decisions based on trusted data to support their gut feel. High Street TV business users have seen great benefit from SAP BusinessObjects®, including:
- SELF-SERVICE – No wait time for new reports & analysis as business users can self-serve
- ONE TRUTH – A consistent set of corporate data to base decisions on company-wide
- FAST ANSWERS – New reports take minutes to create and seconds to run
- EASY ACCESS TO KPIs – Using dashboards has led to business KPIs being available at all levels
- BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT – More time is now spent on analysing data to improve business performance, with almost no time needed to create reports
The flexibility within SAP BusinessObjects, particularly being able to use derived tables and aliases, as well as standard tables, has enabled us to report on data that we couldn’t before, without handcrafting complicated SQL code. The result is that we are now able to create reports and dashboards linking to all our business data. Since implementing SAP BusinessObjects the amount of business insight we are now able to provide staff at all levels has increased incredibly, as has the accuracy of our data.Business Information Analyst, High Street TV