Boots has installedanalytics softwareto provide managers
with faster reports on the performance of each store following its
merger with Alliance Unichem.
The company has upgraded its SAP system and added
business intelligence acceleration software to provide data to
about 1,000 extra managers who are expected to use it following the
2006 merger.
The upgraded system, which enables managers to view daily
reports on each shop's performance, has also saved about three
hours of processing time a night.
Stuart Cunningham, business systems manager at Boots, said that
previously the SAP business intelligence system was unable to cope
with the rapid growth in demand for reports.
"At peak periods, up to 400 reports would be run every minute.
It was a huge strain on the system and the servers were under a lot
of pressure. We would end up with users waiting for the system in a
queue."
Boots upgraded its SAP business intelligence 3.1 system to the
7.0 version in February. It rolled out the Net Weaver business
intelligence accelerator in April.
About 1,800 managers use the system to access between 20 and 30
daily reports. The system's database is growing by 20% a year and
there will be a further 50% increase of managers using the system
following the merger, said Cunningham.
Boots hoped for a 50% growth in the system's capacity when it
made the upgrade but ended up with between 300 and 400% growth.
The company has used the system to save time and disc space by
automatically aggregating the daily data into weekly and monthly
statistics, saving three hours a day of processing time.
Boots uses the daily reports to benchmark stores against each
other and provide managers with the information they need for
decision making. Some reports now run up to 50 times faster and the
system is better able to deal with unpredictable surges in
demand.