EasiYo is the market leader in make-it-yourself yogurt and exports more than half its product range worldwide.

Twenty years ago EasiYo was started in a North Shore garage by a school teacher who wanted to provide nutritional and economical food for his 8 children. Now, 75 per cent of the company's products, totalling NZ$23m, are exported to Australia, the USA, the United Kingdom, Asia and most recently, Italy.

Since 2009 EasiYo has been owned 100 per cent by Westland Milk Products and so has had to manage the transition in disciplines from a family owned business to those of a subsidiary of a large corporate.

The need to garner valuable insights from geographical and demographic data and predict sales trends is a vital part of the operation. An outmoded system was struggling with business demand for more sophisticated reporting and analysis when the decision was made to migrate to Greentree. David Granger, general manager for EasiYo says that the incumbent system had become a bit of a barrier to growth.

Sorting anomalies
Greentree IQ, which is powered by specialist BI tool QlikView, sits within EasiYo’s integrated Greentree suite providing a business intelligence capability for the EasiYo management team. Granger concedes that although he was confident the solution would enable deeper analysis, he didn’t become fully aware of the tool’s real potential until he started using it for analysing all manner of company sales trends. “We are enabled now to drill down to different levels of detail, which in the case of supermarkets sales data, can throw up anomalies which Greentree IQ makes sense of,” he says.

“Greentree IQ enables me to slice, dice and filter data to discover for example, why there’s been a 5 per cent movement up or down in a particular product category.” This may be simply because supermarket staff physically moved the product to another location or shelf height.

“Furthermore, with dairy prices spiralling worldwide, the need to constantly review margins, pricing and sales trends become enormously important.”

Greentree helps reduce accounting overhead Greentree’s integrated environment has had a flow-on effect in terms of several tasks such as preparing the consolidated company accounts, which used to take 3 weeks but now takes 10 days.

Budgeting and reporting are far less timeconsuming and the sophistication of the analysis tools requires less hands-on involvement. In fact, Granger says that when a senior financial accounting staff member left, a replacement wasn’t sought.

Partner support
Granger could not say enough about the support given by the Greentree Partner. “Our partner has been excellent.

They ensured that the scope of work was accurately worked out and the implementation was on time and on budget.

"What more could you ask for?”

A world of possibilities
When confronted with sales data from geographically distant consumers and the supermarket buying patterns of multiple continents, the need to make sense of it all could be all-consuming in terms of time, tools and expertise.

Greentree and QlikView, the technology in behind the IQ product, provide a strategic tool for uncovering trends, anomalies and most importantly, possibilities and opportunities. Granger has no doubt that the combined solution will continue to keep business growth live, well into the future.

FOR MORE INFORMATION//

GREENTREE INTERNATIONAL
W: www.greentree.com
Graham Hill
P: 0800 313 313
F: 09 366 3889










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