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Ace Hardware Remodels Its Enterprise Reporting Capabilities With Information Builders' Business Intelligence
National Retailer Builds on WebFOCUS as Its BI Standard
| Source: Information Builders
NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - October 19, 2009) - Information Builders, an independent leader in
business intelligence (BI)
solutions, today announced that Ace Hardware Corporation has standardized
on the WebFOCUS BI platform for
enterprise-wide reporting, analysis, and information delivery.
Ace Hardware has 10,000 WebFOCUS users in merchandising, marketing,
finance, advertising, international, paint, rental, retail operations, and
supply chain accessing more than 300 WebFOCUS reports. Each department has
its own dashboard where users can launch reports and analytic
applications.
WebFOCUS helps Ace manage its internal operation while enabling retailers
and wholesalers to boost revenue and streamline their supply chains. For
example, retail managers use WebFOCUS to identify their best customers and
target them with specific marketing campaigns. They can monitor the
top-selling items at each retail location, ensuring those items are in
stock and maximizing sales opportunities. Marketing personnel use WebFOCUS
to gauge the effects of specific promotions on sales and to improve the Ace
Rewards customer loyalty program.
In addition, 1,500 people throughout Ace depend on a WebFOCUS dashboard,
which tracks daily sales at the retail and wholesale levels. This
information helps the company gauge how various items are selling by
region, division, and product category. About 1,800 vendors use WebFOCUS to
track how individual products are selling by region and time of year. This
visibility helps these vendors to forecast production needs, optimize
product selection, and develop better sales plans.
"We have yet to hear anybody say 'WebFOCUS can't do that,'" said Tim
Brynda, a software engineering analyst at Ace who is spearheading many of
Ace's current BI efforts. "WebFOCUS has served us well as an enterprise
standard. We couldn't be happier with the results."
According to Brynda, WebFOCUS can easily join data from disparate sources
into a single report, opening up new avenues of inquiry. This has motivated
BI stakeholders to use WebFOCUS as part of an enterprise-wide business
transformation project that centers around implementing SAP R/3
applications. For example, the merchandising team is analyzing wholesale
information from the SAP sales and distribution module to identify
quick-selling, high-margin products that retailers might want to carry.
This information will also be valuable to vendors researching a product's
sales history, retail managers checking inventory levels, and many other
internal and external users. Other SAP reporting initiatives are planned.
Ace plans to use WebFOCUS Active Reports to offer portable analytic options to its field
staff. These dynamic PDF reports will enable remote workers to analyze data
without having to be connected to Ace's intranet. Ace also plans to use
WebFOCUS InfoAssist to expand the number of power users in each
department, easing the pressure on skilled programmers who currently handle
most of the custom reporting services. InfoAssist helps
non-technical people create queries, reports, charts, and dashboards.
Finally, Ace plans to explore WebFOCUS Quick Data to allow business professionals to create ad hoc reports within
Microsoft Excel. An Excel add-in file, Quick Data connects directly to the
WebFOCUS reporting engine to let these users build reports that are
automatically refreshed from enterprise data sources and combine multiple
reports into a single worksheet.
"At a time when leading retail organizations nationwide are coping with
flat or declining sales, Ace is demonstrating how BI can have a positive
impact on the bottom line," said Gerry Cohen, president and CEO at
Information Builders.
About Ace Hardware
Throughout its 85-year history, Ace Hardware has been known as the helpful
hardware store by both customers and communities. In 2009, Ace ranked
"Highest in Customer Satisfaction among Home Improvement Stores for the
Third Consecutive Year," according to J.D. Power and Associates. With 4,600
locally owned and operated hardware, home center and building materials
stores that generate annual retail sales of approximately $12 billion, Ace
is the largest hardware cooperative in the industry. Headquartered in Oak
Brook, Ill., Ace currently operates 14 distribution centers in the U.S. and
one in Shanghai, China, and its retailers' stores are located in all 50
states and more than 60 countries. For more information on Ace, visit
www.acehardware.com.
About Information Builders
Information Builders' award-winning combination of business intelligence
and enterprise integration software has been providing innovative solutions
to more than 12,000 customers for the past 30 years. WebFOCUS is the
world's most widely utilized business intelligence platform. It provides
the security, scalability and flexibility needed at every level of global
extended enterprises. Its simplicity helps create executive, analytical,
and operational applications that reach dozens to millions of users.
Information Builders' iWay Software suite provides state of the art,
multi-purpose, pre-built integration components that address all SOA, application, data and information management
requirements. Its integration adapters have been adopted by the leading
software platform providers. Information Builders also offers solutions in
the performance management, business
activity monitoring, and enterprise search markets. The company's comprehensive enterprise product
offerings give Information Builders' customers the ability to grow and
innovate according to their needs.
Information Builders' customers include most of the Fortune 100 and U.S.
federal government agencies. Headquartered in New York City with 90 offices
worldwide, the company employs 1,450 people and has more than 350 business
partners. More information is available at informationbuilders.com.
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