A&R Whitcoulls is the leading bookseller in Australasia with four divisions – the Whitcoulls Group, Angus & Robertson, the Calendar Club and the Travel Stores in Australia, NZ and Hong Kong. The Whitcoulls and A&R (Angus & Robertson) brands are well-established in their respective markets and have histories dating back over one hundred years. All of the above divisions are wholly-owned by Pacific Equity Partners.

The Whitcoulls Group comprises 62 stores, 40 of which are located in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Approximately 45% of all New Zealanders enter a Whitcoulls store at least once a month. The A&R Division is Australia’s largest book retailer and has 103 directly-owned stores and 61 franchised stores located in every state and territory. Both Whitcoulls and A&R offer an internet retailing platform.

In 2000 the Whitcoulls Group implemented SAP for Retail to help the company improve its customer service. A&R followed its lead in 2004. For reporting, Whitcoulls and A&R used the Retail Information System (RIS) within SAP for Retail.

With the combined businesses using SAP for Retail, there was a vast store of key information that could be a valuable business resource for planning and analysis. But extracting that information was not easy. SAP RIS reporting was formatted differently so it made comparisions difficult, which was frustrating for the management who had come to rely on these reports.

A&R’s systems team had built up considerable skills in multi-dimensional analysis and “the team from A&R had been accustomed to using an SQL-based database in their legacy system and had been able to create cubes to analyse the underlying data,” says A & R Whitcoulls system support group manager Maureen Maloy. “Unfortunately, when we switched to SAP, they couldn’t replicate their reporting process using SAP RIS with the resources they had".

Wanted: Analysis on demand
To address these issues, the SSG was tasked to investigate short term options for a SAPcompatible Business Intelligence solution that could provide the reporting and analysis tools quickly. “Specifically, we needed to create daily site / sales reports which associated stock and on-order data in an environment of frequently changing master data criteria,” says Maloy.

After a review of the different Business Intelligence solutions, A&R Whitcoulls selected iQ4bis. “What really made iQ4bis stand out from the others was their ‘Proof of Concept’ demonstration,” says Maloy. “They showed us how iQ4bis would work with our own data. And because they were able to organise the Proof of Concept so quickly, we were comfortable that we would be able to implement iQ4bis enterprise-wide in a timely manner.”

“We especially liked the way that iQ4bis depicted the data,” says Maloy. “The linked four quadrant views were impressive and contributed to our decision. We needed to build cubes around individual data types and dynamically link them together for multi-dimensional analyses. iQ4bis allowed us to do exactly that quickly and easily.”

Rapid implementation
Because the team from A&R Whitcoulls were already experienced in developing cubes and had an in-depth knowledge of the data structures within SAP, the actual implementation for the initial reports went extremely smoothly. “We have some very bright young analysts who embraced iQ4bis from the outset,” says Maloy. “They knew exactly what they wanted to achieve in respect to reports and analyses and were able to build those applications quickly.”

A key component of the installation was the addition of Microsoft SQL Server into A&R Whitcoulls’ environment. Because iQ4bis DataServer is optimised to run in conjunction with SQL Server, iQ4bis facilitated its delivery, installation and initial operations. “We were able to integrate the back-end Microsoft SQL Server platform into our overall SAP/Oracle environment quickly,” says Maloy. “The whole implementation process went according to plan. The entire process, including training and the building of our key databases and reports, was completed in just a few weeks.

Immediate benefits
A&R Whitcoulls has already realised some tangible benefits from iQ4bis. “In retail, things move very quickly and we need to be able to react quickly to market forces, including what our competitors are offering,” says Maloy.

“One of the busiest times of the year is the Christmas holiday season. We were able to quickly build reports from our daily updated database to monitor how our special Christmas promotions were affecting sales on a daily basis at our individual stores. We were also able to monitor stock by different replenishment types to better understand the level of stock required in each category to meet customer demand without overstocking. While we could do most of this before iQ4bis, it was labour-intensive and took resources and time. With iQ4bis Analysis, we can now do these analyses on a daily basis with no further work once the views were created. Plus we can make ad hoc queries and adjust the parameters if we want as more questions arose. We just didn’t have that type of flexibility before.”

While A&R Whitcoulls has not completed all of the reports and views required for the business, iQ4bis has improved the information available for business decisions at A&R Whitcoulls.

Maloy is confident that the ease-of-use, fast response and intuitive interfaces is making the iQ4bis Analysis a valuable part of A&R Whitcoulls’ operations.

“Every week we have a management meeting to plan strategies and monitor performances,” she says. “The reports and information generated by iQ4bis have made the generation of the management KPIs (key performance indicators) for these meetings easier and faster to prepare.” The attractive site pricing was also a major bonus for A&R Whitcoulls.

“We started out with a 15-seat license, but quickly upgraded to a full-site license as we saw how useful iQ4bis Analysis would be across all the divisions,” says Maloy. “ “We now have the opportunity to roll out the product to as many users as we want without having to budget for additional licenses and maintenance again and again. It has provided us with more options for using the tool at all levels of the business.” As A&R Whitcoulls continues to expand, it will more fully utilise iQ4bis.

“We’ve really just scratched the surface with iQ4bis,” says Maloy. “We want to use iQ4bis Analysis and iQ4bis Analysis Web for the delivery of a like-for-like set of KPIs that can be used in the same way at many levels of the business.”

Click here to register for free iQ4Bis Proof of Concept

For more information contact
Sunesh Samarasinghe
General Manager – Australasia
iQ4bis Software (NZ) Ltd
64 9 529 3767
sunesh@iq4bis.com

March 2005