BI GeneXus Solution at SanCor

"We were trying to respond to a strategic need: performing a profitability analysis of our business. We were looking for profitability niches, wherever they might be. We had to know whether the business matched a specific product code, a client, a brand, or whether it depended on a specific way of presenting it. All these factors usually turn profitability analysis into something so complex that traditional systems fail to fulfill these needs," explained Héctor Romero, Administration and Supply Manager at SanCor. 

The project, which called for an investment of US$ 913,000, started at the beginning of 2001 and continues to date through a succession of stages, some of which are still being developed. 

In mid-2001, the implementation of the first commercial datamart stage was completed. The result was the availability of 140 indicators, analyzable in 80 dimensions. Indicators are the sales, which are divided per market, e.g. internal or external market. "We decided to start with the commercial area because it is the locomotive that pulls the train," said Mr. Romero.

Speedy decision making
Maricel Giancarelli, SanCor's Statistics and Information Chief, has coordinated the Business Intelligence team together with Francisco Chamorro, Management Systems Chief. "It enabled us to obtain results from any product, discriminated by code, depending on the sales channel. This is very important because it has allowed us to make quick decisions, and see the evolution of each product or client. This tool has helped us a lot in prioritizing the codes that we had to produce and sell based on our profitability. There has also been a better use of time," said Ms. Giancarelli.
"At a second stage second semester of 2001 we decided to involve a group of users from Systems and Administration that we had selected to start working with these tools. New requirements arose as we embarked on a knowledge transfer that resulted from our consulting services (HST and Wise)," said Mr. Chamorro. 

And he went on to say "in the first half of 2002, we started a strong diffusion campaign. We started visiting each of the branches with a team that we had put together and we took note of the needs voiced by each user in order to figure out how we could meet such needs."
During this same time period, a training program was organized for 200 users, who were supposed to start using the system progressively. The training included Excel classes at SanCor they were using Lotus at the time, and seminars organized together with IDEA's staff in order to promote a change in corporate culture. 
The working team was made up of eight people from Administration and Systems, who were in charge of user support and Data Warehouse maintenance. 

We decided to deactivate the different commercial report systems in the second half of last year, and the commercial datamart was the only information retrieval source left. 
"This system became the basis for decision-making, supported by the evolution of each product, and had an effect on product prioritization. It became essential for handling projections," said Daniel Rossetti, SanCor's Systems Manager. 

The technical retrieval of information was eliminated 
The solution includes a non-dedicated IBM AS/400 machine used for calculation processing, plus two dedicated IBM NetFinity 6000 servers to be used with GXplorer and a portal with cubes which is currently under trial and an Office Web Component. The development environment is based on an IBM NetFinity 5100 server. 
The tool currently has 250 users, and has grown to 364 indicators and 84 dimensions, and about 11,500 monthly queries. There are 2,000,000 records, processed daily in approximately two and a half hours at night time that generate a data volume of 110Gb. 

"At SanCor we have about 2,000 IT-application users. The number of BI users will surely rise to 400 or 500, especially if we add a financial or human resources datamart in the future. Our aim is to reach the entire Data Warehouse; however, it will not be easy to replace some specific things, for example in the production area," says Mr. Rossetti. The Production area datamart is actually the next step. At present, it is under trial with approximately 10 users. There are some 50 production indicators that are being incorporated, e.g. "average kilo," "assigned liters" or "referred expenses." 
Giancarelli thinks that it is important to highlight that "the technical retrieval of information has been eliminated. It is no longer necessary for someone who needs a report to know about things such as field files. We have deactivated those means of access to information; it was the only way to achieve this transformation and to make users value this system. Today, it is being intensively used and important decisions at top managerial levels are being made." 

"In terms of profitability, this has clarified things a whole lot. The studies used to be roughly made, and they were discriminated in very general items, whereas now we can see things code by code. Moreover, the need to analyze this type of indicators has increased lately, because when everything goes well, people do not look at things in detail," said Mario Dominino, Collection and Distribution Support Manager. 

Rossetti claims that "this is something that has become essential for decision-making, almost on-line." Although its return on investment is not easy to assess, he seems to be satisfied with it: "It is very simple, if you try to take it away from those who do the additions, they'll kill you." 

More details about the solution
The solution is based on the GeneXus DW, GXplorer and GXQuery tools, on an MS SQL 
database and the Excel dynamic table from the Microsoft Office as front end. 

The systems that feed the Data Warehouse are the following:

o Baby/36, developed by SanCor (invoicing and current account).
o World Software, from J.D. Edwards (production, logistics, invoicing, foreign trade).
o CG, from a supplier, T&G (accounting systems)
o One World, from J.D. Edwards (invoicing and current account).
o Discovery, from Buenos Aires Software (invoicing and current account for licensed dealers).
o Projective Model, developed by SanCor (sales projections).
o Base Co, developed by SanCor (unification of commercial bases, invoicing, clients' debit balances). 
o SiReCa and Plan, developed by SanCor (profitability and projections per sales channel).
o MoFo, developed by SanCor (Fixed Fund movements).