IOT Supplychain Visibility Test 947

 

Supply Chain Visibility real-world experiment @ Ride Joburg 947 Cycle Challenge

This past weekend was one of the highlights of the cycling calendar in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Virgin Active Ride Joburg 947 Cycling Race (https://ridejoburg.co.za/)  took place on Sunday 20 November 2022.

Some quick facts:

• Ride Joburg 947 cycling race is the world's second-largest timed cycle race (after the Cape Argus which is the biggest of its type)
• The Ride Joburg 947 race typically draws between 20 000-30 000 competitors, but this year the ridership might have been slightly lower - we have not yet been able to confirm the accurate number of participants for 2022
• This year’s route distance was extended from the traditional 94.7 km to a somewhat more challenging 97 km (60.27 miles) and took place at an altitude ranging between 1400 to ± 1740 meters above sea level.
• Sunny Highveld summer conditions prevailed with temperatures exceeding 30°C (86° F) in places

 

Data from Strava - an app for sports people (for comparative purposes)

Real-time tracking

Cogniplex decided to put Tive’s Solo 5G™ tracker to the test, under real-world conditions - during the Ride Joburg 947 Cycle Race. 

• 1x Tive Solo 5G tracker was discretely slipped into a Cogniplex Ride Joburg mountain bike rider’s backpack, safely nestled between energy bars and energy drinks for the ride.

The tracking unit  

      The Tive Solo 5G tracking unit is small and discreet

• Weight                                     100 grams
• Accuracy:

• Cellular                        500 m
• WiFi geolocation          50 m
• GPS                             5 m

The tracking unit placed inside the backpack

What sets the Tive unit apart from other trackers is the range of readings it can make in addition to basic location reporting. Analysis of the trip data reported the following:

·        Real-time location

Driving to the event we were redirected twice due to misunderstanding road closures, but still arrived well in advance at FNB Soccer City for our batch starting time. 

• Note that the Tive Unit is not a navigational tool directing you where to drive, but rather a reporting tool recording where the unit travelled.

Live tracking - screenshot was taken post-event covering movements over 24 hours

The platform offers:

• geo-fencing, 
• clickable and zoomable maps down to street level, 
• data at each measuring point along the route. 
• While we only used 1 tracking unit for this experiment, the platform has the capability of tracking multiple tracking units simultaneously.

Each of the readings below can be tied back to a specific date, time and GPS location. This means a detailed audit trail is recorded onto a cloud for each trip, recording at any given moment:

·        Real-time temperature

Note that the temperatures were recorded inside a backpack, meaning external/ambient temperatures could have been higher

Temperature readings

·        Humidity

Again, recording inside a backpack. The higher readings around 2 pm were recorded when the rider stood under a water hose to cool down

                                                                                Temperature readings

·        Real-time acceleration

Acceleration is measured in G-force (a measurement of the type of force per unit mass) and not in km/h. 

These measurements in the context of logistics could indicate rough handling (e.g. dropping, knocking, bumping or throwing of items), or bad road conditions (traffic or other accidents, sudden stops or extreme braking).  For our rider, this meant uneven road surfaces and speeds of up to 55 km/h, and dropping the backpack once or twice.

Acceleration readings

Tracking your precious - Supply Chain applications

This platform offers real-time visibility across the different functions and geo-locations in your supply chain. Adding a Tive Solo 5G unit or more than one unit to your cargo, whether stored in a warehouse, or carried by your own trucks, or third-party/outsourced transporters (3PL, 4PL etc) offers the following benefits:

• The units are easy to activate and easy to use, with a battery life of up to 90 days (depending on reporting period setting selected). 
• Tracking units can be individually charged with a cell phone charger.
• The tracking unit can measure local conditions in time units ranging from 2 min to 5 min. This means every 2-5 minutes you can monitor in real-time the following conditions:
• Location – monitoring the actual location to detect delays, possible unauthorised stops, or deviations from approved routes
• Temperature – monitoring temperature-sensitive cargo, cold chain products, and perishable products e.g. to monitor SLA compliance, product or health & safety standards, etc
• Humidity – monitoring humidity-sensitive cargo, electronics, cold chain, and perishable products e.g. to monitor SLA compliance, product or health & safety standards, etc
• Light – confirming whether the truck/packaging has been compromised or opened along the way
• Acceleration – detecting bumps, knocks, and heavy handling will enable you to pinpoint damages and prove negligence for breakage

Not only does the Tive Solo 5G allow you access to real-time condition confirmation, but it also comes with the added benefit of historical data accessible from the cloud for a period afterwards ranging from 24 hours to 90 days.

Benefits of Visibility on your Supply Chain

The benefit of having full and real-time supply chain visibility provides bonafide fleet operators/transporters as well as cargo owners/importers / exporters with the peace of mind to:

• Drive accountability
• Monitor transporter performance
• Monitor safe handling of goods
• Enforce SLAs and penalties
• Prove damages and reduce claims
• Reduce unnecessary stops, route deviations, and unexplained delays
• Track late cargo

We are happy to report that both our Tive Solo 5G tracker and our rider (eventually!) completed the journey and got back home safely.

 

Should you need more information or wish to have a confidential discussion about your specific requirements, please contact Benjamin@cogniplex.co.za

• Please note that Cogniplex is not an event organiser, corporate sponsor or in any way associated with the owners and organisation of the Virgin Active Ride Joburg 947 event of 2022.  
• All trademarks and IP is the property of their respective owners. 

Need more information? Want to start a pilot project? Please contact us

If you have found this article useful or interesting, please share it with others in your company or industry.

#IOT  #supplychain #riskmanagement

Dude where's my cargo? Supply Chain Visibility Example

 

Dude where's my cargo? 

Estimated reading time: 4 min

A hypothetical supply chain risk scenario unfolding in real-life 

Short summary translation of the above newspaper article that appeared in the Rapport newspaper on 12 June 2022: 

A transport broker contracted a reputable transport company and made available cargo to be transported with the very reasonable expectation that said cargo (maize meal) would be carried from Point A (Meyerton SA) to Point B (DRC) by the appointed transporter. 

Why was this a reasonable expectation?  - The transporter 

• was a reputable and reliable company,
• specialised in cross-border cargo,
• had good references from a range of clients,
• had done this type of trip before,
• appeared to had a reliable fleet, and
• the necessary minimum payments were made.

However, according to the newspaper article, the client in the DRC informed him after some time that some scheduled deliveries never took place, despite payment and import clearances. Due to delays caused by border clearances and Covid19-related supply chain delays, the time required to do a one-way transport increased from an average of 14 days to 45 days. This made it difficult to gauge progress. Despite querying the progress often, the transport broker was assured all is under control and in accordance with the schedule. For this reason, the problem was not picked up much earlier. 

It is only after a phone call was received from a (probably) irate client in the DRC, that the transport broker's lingering suspicions got the better of him and he realised something major was amiss. He then jumped in his car, drove to the transporter’s premises, and much to his shock and horror discovered rows of semi-covered pallets of maize meal exposed to the elements: sun, wind, rain, and insects.  

This matter is now before the court.

This situation was preventable

We are using this real-world example, not in order to finger-point any type of transport service provider or attempt to allocate blame, as that is the matter before the court. For this reason, we also removed the names of the parties involved as it is not particularly relevant to the point being illustrated. 

This case, however, is a real case study where a number of parties to a cargo shipment that has to be transported from A to B have to rely on each of the other role players to do the right thing at the right time and thereby prevent any potential transport risk from materialising.    

The client (and their broker):

• Had to rely on the verbal confirmation of the service provider/transporter without any 3rd party or IT system confirmation of facts,
• Did not have reliable means of communication with drivers,
• Did not have agents at way-points to confirm status,
• Did not have any access to real-time reporting on the location of the cargo, and was, therefore, unable to track actual trip progress made,
• Did not have any real-time information on the condition of the cargo, and was, therefore, unaware that the cargo was left standing in the sun, wind and rain for an extended period of time.

Supply Chain Visibility

With the help of modern technology, some of these risks can be detected, monitored, managed and in some cases even prevented:

• Cargo items being exposed to elements (sun, wind, rain) or experiencing fluctuations in temperature leading to damages, losses, insurance, and legal claims,
• Transport and Border Delays, 
• Late deliveries,
• Unnecessary detours, 

If your company or somebody you know had a similar horror story, there are now Internet-of-Things (IOT) solutions that can assist you to monitor your fleet from the relative comfort of wherever you have internet access: a Fleet Visibility Platform offers you the following advantages

1. Transparency - having real-time end-to-end IOT visibility into where your operational assets/inventory/shipments are, with hyper-accurate location data, despite using different 3rd party logistics providers or channels, such as warehouses, handlers, or distributors in multiple locations. 
   
   
   

   Attribution: vecteezy.com/members/illustration4stock224427

2. Keeping track of critical performance data - Key indications such as transit time, stops and halt periods, loading times, and whether or not unauthorised pauses or unexpected delays happened are all available on the fly. This gives you information, allowing you to predict whether your operational assets, inventory, or freight will arrive on time, ahead of schedule, or late. It also allows you to keep track of the performance of your suppliers.
3. Auditability - Having an audit trail to demonstrate the real-time condition of fragile or high-value inventory / perishable shipments. Knowing whether the goods were handled in accordance with the SLA and/or regulatory compliance standards throughout the route.
4. Real-time condition reporting – Knowing the status of your perishable/fragile shipments in real-time, as well as being able to pinpoint and apportion blame for damage as it occurs.

5. Actionable insights in real-time to:

• Protect your business operations against both known risks and unforeseen events and disruptions.
• Respond to and manage exceptions by making fact-based decisions.
• Lower expenses and minimise damage to perishable and fragile goods, as well as shrinkage and/or losses of high-value items.
• Improve the quality of forecasting and inventory management,
• Maximize operational efficiency,
• Increase customer satisfaction,
• Improve profitability,

 For more information please visit: Cogniplex Visibility Solutions 

Need more information? Want to start a pilot project? Please contact us

If you have found this article useful or thought-provoking, please share it with others in your company or industry.

#IOT  #supplychain #riskmanagement

Operations and Supply Chain Visibility - what is it and why do you need it?

 

SYNOPSIS: Having no visibility, real-time insights, or reliable data on business operations or the current status of your supply chains is conceptually not too far removed from driving blind. This article briefly explains some use cases and advantages of operational and supply chain visibility platforms and systems.

ESTIMATED READING TIME: 5min

First posted on LinkedIn - read the ORIGINAL POST here

You wouldn’t drive your car blindfolded, would you?

Driving blind is a dangerous and potentially life-threatening practice, perhaps best left to trained movie stunt professionals on movie lots. The rest of us, social influencers included (even those with very deep pockets and extensive liability cover), should best stay far away.

While the image in the title has been Photoshopped somewhat, this image ☝️☝️ is the real deal and comes from a YouTube video in which a popular YouTuber filmed himself driving blindfolded. The video sparked a public outcry and negative news coverage, as one could expect. This resulted in the video initially being age-restricted and demonetised, and then subsequently removed by YouTube.

The risks caused by driving blind are rather obvious and easy for all to see - apart from the aforementioned YouTuber, and include at least the following:

• Inability to see where you are going.
• Inability to see how the situation around your vehicle and inside the vehicle is changing in real-time.
• Inability to effectively make informed decisions in real-time or timeously execute corrective action to best adjust to the developing risks and changing situations around you.
• You are very likely to cause or end up in an accident, incurring costs, losses and liability claims, including but not limited to loss of life.

Swimming in a Sea of Business, Operational and Supply Chain Risks

The same goes for managing and coordinating the various activities inside a business: in today’s equally volatile and fragile economic climate, no accountant worth his salt will manage the finances of a business blind-folded either – meaning without knowing with a reasonable degree of certainty how much the expenses are, who needs to be paid or when the payments are due, or how many invoices are outstanding and how much is owed by each debtor.

If visibility is such an obvious requirement for driving and finances, why are there parts of business operations that are still “operating in the dark”, figuratively speaking?

Have a look at almost any media outlet or newspaper and one will see headings describing losses, damages, delays, bottlenecks, shortages, and other supply chain challenges brought on by a mix of internal and external factors as well as foreseeable and unforeseeable risk events. Many existing but previously manageable challenges were upgraded and further exacerbated by the great Supply Chain crisis of 2021-2022. This in turn was brought on by (some would say ill-considered) pandemic emergency measures, which caused systemic shocks, stock outages, and shortages, shutdowns of suppliers (both temporary as well as permanent in nature); significant supply chain delays; economic hardship; and increased volatility around the world. In the process, some entirely new problems were created. The only constant is change.

In no specific order, below please find a short list of 12 examples of current supply chain and operational challenges, many of which may or could affect business operations in the Southern African (or international) market:

Please scroll through this list. While this is by no means intended to be an exhaustive or comprehensive list, it does highlight the wide range of challenges that local businesses confront from time to time, some of which occur daily, including:

• Supply disruption due to lockdowns 
• Cargo and freight handling delays, accidents and incidents
• Wastage, damages and shrinkage to perishable foodstuffs, fresh fruit and veggies
• Political unrest, riots and looting targeting the supply chain, transporters, and warehouses
• Import and export delays, shipping delays, border congestion and delays
• Counterfeit products, supply chain control gaps, shortages and stock-outages
• Natural disasters, flooding, transport infrastructure (ports, docks and roads inaccessible), unavailability of services due electrical outages, water bursting, etc

Many of these problems are caused by external factors beyond the control of the average company; they are not isolated occurrences; they are not limited to specific suppliers or carriers; they are not necessarily industry-specific; and they can and do affect the entire Southern African economy, including international supply chain networks. And these issues have disastrous effects on operational efficiency and bottom-line profits. Research by McKinsey indicates that “supply-chain disruptions cost the average organization 45 percent of one year’s profits over the course of a decade.”. For South African businesses, the cost of e.g. importing goods has increased significantly, with a 400–500% cost increase for freighting a 12-meter container by sea from China to South Africa, even for large organisations with bargaining power. On some international trade routes, shipping costs have increased much more. Risk has increased significantly. Many of these costs are passed on to the consumer, who is now faced with rapidly increasing living expenses, rising inflation, and considerably less discretionary spending power, which, in turn, reverberates throughout the economy.

It is therefore advisable to use every tool in your arsenal to pro-actively respond to the changing situation around you. Because every load counts.

So what is Visibility?

Visibility platforms (software + tracking devices) compile and analyse real-time data across the shipping journey to provide end-to-end shipment visibility across different industry applications.

This means a commercial customer has the ability to track-and-trace assets or inventory live and in real-time, e.g. from the point where the item/shipment leaves the farmer's, manufacturer’s, supplier’s, or service provider’s warehouse/distribution centre up to the point where it arrives at the destination, allowing you to keep track of the current location, condition, and status of these items throughout the journey.

• Visibility platforms are frequently used for supply chain visibility but can have other related applications, e.g. large and complex business operations. It is important to understand that the visibility requirements can vary somewhat between e.g. a logistics business/farmer/manufacturer/distributor/retailer/importer/exporter, which could be very different from the visibility requirements of a bank or a pension fund.
• Different technologies are on offer and the platform can obtain data via API, directly from telematics or other types of tracking IOT devices.

6 Reasons why your business needs visibility

Consider how your company could profit from having Real-Time Visibility into your operations and access to a Single Version of the Truth:

1. Transparency - having real-time end-to-end IOT visibility on where your operational assets/inventory/shipments are, with hyper-accurate location information, despite using numerous 3rd party logistics providers or channels, such as warehouses, handlers, or distributors in multiple locations
2. Tracking important performance data - Key indicators such as transit time, stops and halt periods, loading times, or whether unauthorised pauses or unexpected delays occurred are all available on the fly. This provides you with knowledge, allowing you to forecast if your operational assets, inventory, or freight will arrive on time, ahead of plan, or behind schedule. And allows you to keep track of supplier performance.
3. Auditability - Having an audit trail to prove real-time conditions of fragile or high-value inventory / perishable shipments. Knowing if the cargo was handled in accordance with SLA and or regulatory compliance requirements for the duration of the trip.
4. Real-time condition reporting - Knowing the condition of your perishable/fragile shipments in real-time, and being able to pinpoint and allocate accountability for damage if and when it occurs.
5. Real-time actionable insights to:

• Make fact-based decisions to respond to and manage exceptions,
• Reduce costs and minimise damage to fragile and perishable goods, shrinkage and or losses of high-value goods,
• Identify operational bottlenecks,
• Make data-driven decisions to develop business cases, mitigate risks or loss prevention strategies,
• Improve the quality of forecasting and inventory management,
• Maximise operational efficiency,
• Increase customer satisfaction,
• Improve profitability,
• Withstand and defend against disruption.

The aforementioned cover some of the advantages that Visibility platforms have to offer – including aggregated, real-time data about the movement of freight along the shipping journey, providing end-to-end shipment visibility.

6. For rather obvious reasons, then, it comes as no surprise that research by the authoritative market intelligence and investment advisory firm, CBInsights, emphasised the importance of prioritising supply chain and operational visibility platforms as a focus area for retailers. What’s good for the goose …er retailer, is probably worth seriously thinking about for other players across different value chains and different industries, too.

So, if given a choice, you would not drive blindfolded, right? Where do you see Visibility adding the most benefit to your business?

Need more information? Want to start a pilot project? Please contact us

If you have found this article useful or thought-provoking, please share it with others in your company or industry.

#IOT #retail #supplychain #riskmanagement

Photo-credits:

All media belongs to their respective owners.

Shark photo Jacob Owens + Warehouse Photo by Bernd Dittrich found on Unsplash

Why do I need Business Intelligence (BI) or Data Analytics in my business?

Business is a numbers game

This article is a joint publication by Cogniplex and Blestec

Being on top of your business’ numbers is crucial in today’s highly competitive environment. Everything that moves or breathes (or doesn’t breathe) is classified as an income or cost centre, maybe as a controllable fixed cost or variable cost, and reported in Income Statements and in asset registers.

However, not every bit of important business information is denominated in Rand, Dollars or Yen. Various important bits of information could have a huge impact on the bottom line – to mention a few these could be:

• number of units manufactured or sold, 
• kilometres driven per vehicle per month, 
• SKUs moved through the warehouse, 
• average overtime hours per month, 
• mean variation on production run time, 
• evaporation or shrinkage losses. 

These numbers might be hidden in databases or hiding in plain sight in call-centre or customer satisfaction reports that nobody ever reads, or lurking in proof-of-delivery documents and time sheets. Despite them being hidden from public view, these "hidden" numbers could ultimately make or break a business.

What is Data Analytics and Business Intelligence (BI)?

Data analytics is the process of examining all these sources of data, finding trends, adding meaning to and assisting management to draw conclusions based on this data.

Business intelligence (BI), according to Gartner, is an umbrella term that includes the software applications, infrastructure and tools, as well as the best practices that enable access to and analysis of information to improve, optimize decisions and performance.

Courtesy of www.timoelliott.com

BI encapsulates large-scale decision support in organisations:

• BI provides management with a holistic view of the business and enables management to make informed decisions with regard to the business,
•  It can contribute to the reducing costs, improving performance or opening up new business opportunities, or
• It can assist to identify non-value adding activities or poor processes for optimisation.

Some examples of how analytics and or BI can add value to your business:

• In a large capital intensive companies, maintaining the asset register is an important but often neglected function to be passed around to the new employee. Some admin clerks might record fleet trucks as “M/B”, others as “Mercedes”, “M.Benz”, “Merc” or “Mercedes Benz”. Model numbers might be recorded more haphazardly. Equipment descriptions could be equally vague and might be recorded as “MF4000”, “HP”, “Hewlett Packard”, or simply “Sally Exec Office Printer”. Over time such an asset register or database loses integrity due to incomplete fields, incorrect descriptions, and inconsistent data formats. For mergers & acquisitions, or even the implementation of an asset register module or financial system, a comprehensive, complete and accurate database is required. Data analytics systems can be used to scrub (clean up) such data by analysing huge volumes of data, identifying and flagging disparate data fields for correction.

• In retail environments, management is focussed on creating a better customer shopping experience. BI can be used to great effect in making daily operational decisions such as micro segmentation to enhance decision making on store performance, product performance or even customer segmentation. When omnichannel decisions, real-time promotions or dynamic pricing comes in to play, the volume of data points can be so overwhelming that it dictates real-time electronic data analytics. Predictive analytics can also be used in demand forecasting, for out-of-stock analysis as well as pricing optimization.
• Finance & Procurement can use BI to create automated standard reports in a fraction of the time that it would take to manually compile the reports, thereby freeing up valuable manpower. Daily performance tracking and accurate management information via dashboards can prevent nasty surprises at the end of the month or quarter. Analytics can be used to get to the bottom of spend, measuring and monitoring expenditure, identifying suppliers and contracts offering further opportunities for saving or to align and optimise procure-to-pay processes. Software or Platform as a Service (SaaS or PaaS) companies need to track various metrics meticulously to calculate e.g. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Customer Lifetime Value (LCV), Churn or Monthly Recurring Revenues (MRR) per customer.  At a more strategic level, specialised predictive BI tools can be used for:

o   scenario planning,

o   provide guidance on whether to open up new branches or not,

o   make predictions on sales or expenses, profitability or

o   risk analyses and credit management in order to maximise ROCE. 

Example of an Executive Reporting Dashboard – courtesy of Klipfolio

• In Banks, Insurance houses or other players in the financial industry, different legacy IT systems are often used, each serving a different purpose. Customer information may reside in a Customer Information Database and Account details in the Accounts database. These data sources may furthermore reside in different business units altogether. In order to make meaningful decisions based on a full client view, data analytical tools offer features that aid in merging and or cleaning data (Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) data pipeline).  

• Management information needs differ between different business units and even different departments, what Marketing needs vs what the Call Centre needs to see.  Marketing needs to stay on top of CRM e.g. leads received, vs leads converted into actual sales, calculating Net Promotor Scores or preparing models on the marketing mix. They also need to keep track of which products each client purchased for warranty purposes and or client retention. Specialised analytical packages are used for social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest to analyse the effectiveness of key words, sales conversion campaigns, conduct A/B testing on landing pages or perform heat map analysis on websites. Outbound Call Centres may need Customer Segmentation, sales conversions and tracking of sales processes. Inbound Call Centres have to deal with call volumes, call service ratings, event reporting, tracking and escalating client complaints. BI packages can be used to create dashboards that reflect live data of call volumes, complaints, and escalation. Call Centre management depends on this management information to make resource re-allocations on the go, depending on caller volumes.

• Supply Chain can greatly improve its operational efficiency when it has access to real-time intelligence into logistics: orders volumes vs warehouse stock levels, analysing on-time-delivery vs actuals, and driver-location and behaviour. BI can provide granular visibility on transport and logistic costs so that these can be managed more effectively e.g. diagnostic analytics to identify vehicles dedicated to specific routes which require disproportionate high maintenance, battery or tire replacements compared to fleet or model average. Specialist analytic systems can perform route optimisation calculations to improve efficiency, save cost and money.  

Example of a Supply Chain Dashboard – courtesy of Klipfolio

• Data analytics are used as far afield as professional sport, in Rugby, Football, Cycling, and Basketball where it combines data from GPS, accelerometers, gym sessions and fitness trackers with video and other data sources to identify opportunities for improvement, prepare for matches, select players or even to influence game strategy. A sports science company in France is developing a smart “compressive” garment with French elite rugby team Stade Toulousain, which includes GPS, heart rate, speed and other monitoring hardware.

As can be seen from the examples above, BI and or Analytics can contribute to improved efficiency at various levels in the business: 

• Strategic BI - Strategic Business Intelligence informs management if the company is on target to meet its primary objective/goals or not. It also assists management to take corrective actions if they see the ship is veering off course.                                                                                                                                                                         Business focus: Achieve long term organizational goals e.g. maximise ROI

Strategic Dashboard courtesy of www.datapine.com

Tactical BI - The Tactical Business Intelligence looks at historical data to see if enough has been sold compared to last month and whether there is inventory to meet expected demands. 

Business focus: Conduct medium to short term analysis to achieve strategic goals

Tactical Dashboard courtesy of www.informationbuilders.com

• Operational BI - The Operational Business Intelligence is an immediate reactive business process.                                                                                                   

  

  Operational Dashboard courtesy of www.dundas.com/

  Business focus: Manage daily operations, integrate BI with operational systems

How can my business benefit from this?

"How can my business benefit from BI or data analytics" -  The short answer to that is as follows:

• Saving time and money e.g. to prepare reports: having automated processes can increase accuracy, and reliability while freeing up resources from repetitive and time-consuming activities such as report drafting. There is no longer a need to have someone who will pull data from different systems to a spreadsheet, then analyse it and present it. A scalable BI solution can do all that for you and deliver it to your mobile device, while you are sitting in a restaurant, saving you time and money. 

• Providing high-quality management information and improving decision making - BI can assist you to make informed decisions faster, and more accurately, based on actual facts and figures. BI can also compare information between locations, periods, products or services. 

• Increase efficiency within the business: BI can increase efficiency in your business, identify business processes or service areas which require improvement, optimise stock levels, or reduce stock-outs or improve response times. This can be achieved in many ways, e.g. automated processes can increase reliability and efficiency while the rest of your staff are freed up to focus on other matters of the business. 

Which type of businesses should seriously consider implementing BI and or data analytics?

• Companies with various data sources or an IT landscape made up of various disparate systems and disjointed databases in legacy systems, each keeping a portion of data, where selected data from different sources has to be extracted and merged to provide an overarching view and richer analytics; 
• Companies with databases that are incomplete, with incorrect descriptions, and inconsistent data conventions requiring scrubbing, or preparing data sets for system implementation or due diligence type transactions; 
• Companies requiring management dashboards and business metrics for Finance, Call Centres or other operational units; 

• Companies which: 

         - Are drowning in Excel spreadsheets and bits of paper, 

         - Are struggling to manually analyse or interpret huge volumes of data, 

         - Require assistance interpreting data, or converting data,
         - Require management information for operational and strategic decision making,  

         - Cannot afford to continue with guess work or educated hunches, 
         - Need to improve quality and turn-around of decision making, 

         - Strive to improve efficiency and streamline operations, 

         - Need to identify cost savings, increase profitability or ROI

If you recognise any of the above-mentioned challenges or symptoms in your company, feel free to contact us today to find out how we can help you.

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This article is a joint publication by Cogniplex and Blestec

For more information, or to request a consultation, please contact us: 

Contact:    Cogniplex - Benjamin on 011 839 1536

                  Blestec     - Sibusiso on  079 106 8435