Success Case: CRM – Business Intelligence, Marco Argentina

From limited archives to a base without limits

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Working at clients' needs

CRM Business Intelligence project for world's leading Athletic Wear Company was developed by Marketing and Business Intelligence, Marco Argentina.

The project was born when operative necessities for managing company information were detected. The sport firm, in Argentina, did not count on a platform for efficient collaborative work groups and points of sale documentation management.

At the beginning, MBI area only managed the information of every client point of sales in Argentina: On one hand, company monthly sales concerning to its Levels: Brand Shops (Level 1), main Retailers (Level 2) and Chains (Level 3) located at Capital Federal, Gran Buenos Aires and the rest of the country. On the other, sales information regarding product segments: Apparel, Equipment and Footwear. At the same time, it was also managed the crossing of this information to build brand consumer profile, concerning to Levels positioning, among others.

"The information of the points of sale was carried out through Excel archives" and that these "were limited to 6000 registries", it is explained from MBI. The information was no only dispersed, but also these pharaonics files did no result accessible for later modification; being them almost unmanageable, in some cases, and very heavies archives for any PC. So, this situation was communicated to athletic wear firm, the storage method was arriving at the limit of its possibilities, and the analysis of the data was turning very complicated.

Like first step MBI area designed a new Plan of Action that consisted in warehousing "historical sales archives in one Access database". This change brought important improvements: "the reduction of 64% in the time for information processing; the standardization of databases types; and the elimination of Excel archives mistakes".

The problem was solved partiality, since all Company in Argentina points of sale information must be updated month to month.

The solution: CRM - Business Intelligence

As opposed to this previous panorama MBI area saw that “the client needed an informatics solution that would allow them to give a whole answer for information management, which was considered an essential process for taking strategic commercial decisions”.

The second step was the proposal of CRM - Business Intelligence development, based in SQL system, which began to work in December 2004.

According MBI area the objective SQL Server migration was that “to generate a system that would be capable of analyzing point of sale information and crossing it, a system in which all information could be centralized".

The first stage was to make two modules: "Upload" and "Donwload" for CRM – Business Intelligence. In the "Upload" module the information can be uploaded in a “standardized structure of data", where the users send their reports in simple Excel format. In "Download", the output reports are available for users in excel files.

The main contribution of CRM Business Intelligence System was to position itself as an easy tool to use and execute for data consults for the client, in order to manage all sales-related information. Now from MBI area is explained that "with only a click the client grants access to detailed information".

Sport firm is very satisfied with the results. The client keeps showing interest in the new system possibilities and asks what the program is able to do.

From MBI told that “they are so surprised that they can not believe it, because before this was not information but only data in incomprehensible and infinite excel databases".

At the present time, the system conformed by Business Intelligence is a base without limits, since new modules can be always added. A third module implementation called Door Planning Tool was approved.

The new third module works on detailed references through "Doors Planning" by “Query Forms". It’s prepared to receive the data that corresponds to the next brand stores to be inaugurated. The outline admits the information from opening date assigned for the store to address (zone, province and country) and type of Level, and even the surface meters detail. Besides, it is possible to obtain sales values (units and price in dollars), for Apparel, Equipment and Footwear segments.

One of the main benefits is that all this previous information can be filtered according to different variables, since the system works on “internal queries, data interlacing referring to doors and sales, verifying existing values with capacity to project them, information in comparison to zones and clients, and planning to follow up new doors opening”.

Beyond the possibility to access CRM Business Intelligence system, MBI also generates, month to month, Client Reports, obtained from base SQL processing.

For this Report, several categories are considered: company sales to its clients by each one of the Levels, monthly sales of each one of the Doors or branches, sales according to meter surface, stock data and historical archives (year before), among others.