North Carolina footwear maker proves business intelligence can be easy

One mid-size footcare manufacturer in North Carolina found that business intelligence ROI was actually better than advertised—and worlds better than the average Fortune 500 company’s ROI.

Like so many other mid-size organizations, managing sales and inventory was nearly an all-consuming task.

“Until about mid-2006, managing these operations was tough,” said Implus Footcare COO Sam Prestipino.

Implus struggled to analyze trends and transactions and to make forecasts. Answering a simple question like “How do these customers’ open orders compare with their previous volume?” involved looking back and forth among multiple reports.

Every time decision makers needed a new report, they had to ask the IT department to create one. That usually took hours. Also, because of the data volume, some reports ran too slowly for delivery when needed.

The key was the right business intelligence solution, DataSelf BI. It’s built with mid-size organizations in mind—providing simplicity for decision makers who don’t have the time, budget or support for big-company hairballs.

Today, managing inventory and sales operations is easier because of DataSelf BI.

“After email,” Prestipino said, “DataSelf BI is the first thing the CEO checks in the morning. I use it religiously. You can drill down, drill up, and drill back in history.”

Prestipino himself built one of the first custom reports to replace an old and time consuming 300-page sales-order report. The new report is a smart summary that’s just three pages long—and runs with a mouse click. It gives him a snapshot of the open orders sorted by ship date.

“I can give the smart summary to my warehouse managers and say, ‘This is the hot list,’” said Prestipino.

The DataSelf BI system has proven valuable throughout the company. For example, it calculates sales commissions, and it has automated an inventory aging report that used to require a staff accountant all day to produce.

“It’s tremendously powerful,” said Prestipino.


ABOUT DATASELF CORPORATION

DataSelf, with main offices in the heart of the Silicon Valley, is a privately owned software publisher of business intelligence (BI) solutions.

For more information about DataSelf, please visit www.dataself.com.