Overview

Westcon Group, based in Tarrytown, NY, is the leading global distributor of convergence products. The folks at Westcon asked us to help them with a challenging problem: what would be the best means of making their global sales and finance data available for on-demand analysis. They realized that if well managed, this data would provide great insight into buying patterns and drive more effective pricing strategies.

The Challenge

Based on an examination of their staffing mix, culture and existing technology, we presented them with two options: we could help them implement a pre-configured warehouse, already available for their ERP, mentoring them on how to make it work for their business, or they could develop their own solution on top of industry-standard templates. The first option would be faster to implement and provide many more reports out of the box, albeit not ones that were quite right for their business. The second option would be well integrated into their business practices but would require more work to build out the various subject areas and reports.

The Approach

We helped them to find the most appropriate solution, and for them this was the second approach. Our subsequent engagement centered on the development of the integration processes and interfaces required to turn their data, sourced primarily from JD Edwards, into actionable information. Taking a Kimball-based approach, we deployed a series of data marts, each taking about three months per subject area. Between each subject area, we worked with them to improve their understanding of the technology and the transformation of their data into information. Our approach, developed over two decades of providing reliable and low maintenance data insight solutions, was built on the solutions they knew best: existing enterprise database technologies from Oracle and Microsoft and business intelligence solutions from Business Objects.

The Result

The initial sales data mart, comprising several subject areas, was deployed over the next year across three global data centers, enabling 30+ country managers to gain significant insight, reducing each analytic solution from days to minutes. The investment in this solution was easily recovered by the end of the first year. By the third anniversary, we had created with our client a federated data warehouse supporting time-based analysis of Sales, Stock, Receiveables, Payables and General Ledger. Most significantly, our solution included discrete pricing analysis, which enabled the firm to analyze the true cost of not just promotions and specific deals but of global relationships themselves. Prior to the mart, this was not possible since it often wasn't clear who the ultimate multinational customer was. According to Duncan Craven, our technology liaison at Westcon, "We used Chateaux exactly as we had envisioned, by putting their significant experience and skill to work in support many of our most important corporate projects." As a result of these engagements, our client has continued to grow in its reach, depth and success.

SO010