Leading global electronic components distributor FE Global Electronics has adopted QlikView, QlikTech's fast and flexible business analysis solution, to analyse and improve its business performance.
FE Global selected QlikView for its ability to consolidate data from various business sources, including supply chain data from SAP systems, and provide a common view of Key Performance Indicators to decision makers across the company.
Over the past 15 years FE Global has seen spectacular growth from £2.3m in 1991 to £260m in 2004. More than 700 staff are employed worldwide, dealing with 80 major suppliers and 1,000 active customers.
Such wide distribution coverage created a complex web of supplier and customer relationships, each requiring careful sales analysis, management of inventory levels and proactive monitoring of accounts. As a result, decision makers struggled to get consistent, usable information from their existing reporting systems. To remedy this, FE Global embarked on a Business Intelligence (BI) initiative to improve business analysis and performance.
"Our business runs at very competitive margins, so we needed a BI solution that would help us completely understand and manage our cash flow. We initially looked at traditional OLAP-based products, but after taking a closer look at QlikTech we decided to go with QlikView," said Tay Hung Chuan, senior IT manager for FE Global. "We liked the architecture of QlikView; the ease of data consolidation was a key consideration. At the same time, portability was important for our users throughout the region to work with the system online or offline, and only QlikView offered that."
"FE Global had specific operational issues, in particular with ageing inventory and accounts receivable which were harming the business," explains Andy Honess, managing director, QlikTech UK. "While each function had slightly different needs, they all shared a common problem. QlikView was able to provide a solution quickly - in a matter of weeks rather than months or years."
