Meddata Solutions, a supplier of targeted intelligence and management systems to the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, has selected business intelligence and data analytics software from QlikView South Africa to take its service to the next level.

"We're in the business of providing a service in the form of information and QlikView has helped us differentiate our service levels" says Louwrie Terblanche, director of Meddata.

Meddata's key account managers are placed on-site at the various pharmaceutical companies to help clients analyse their data. "QlikView is simple and straightforward to use and our account managers are able to easily answer any queries themselves, without having to contact the development team every time a new report is required," says Terblanche.

Ease-of-use was a major consideration for the company, when choosing its BI solution. "We have a huge database with millions of records and we need a tool that can take any subset of data and thoroughly analyse it. Furthermore, we don't have time to take key personnel out of the office for lengthy training and QlikView was able to fully train our staff in hours rather than days," continues Terblanche.

About a year ago, the company realised the need for an analytical tool and considered various options. "Along with ease-of-use, cost was obviously another major consideration," says Terblanche, "and QlikView came out tops. The implementation phase was extremely fast."

"The benefit now is that we have only one product - while previously we had different tools to handle the reporting and analysis. Using more than one tool wastes time because the user has to wait for the information to load. QlikView, however, analyses the data and loads it directly into memory, giving the user instant multiple views simultaneously. Another plus factor is that QlikView works off our existing datawarehouse database so there's no need for additional datamarts and a redesign," explains Terblanche.

"Since implementing QlikView, we've seen increased levels of productivity. Our client's reps are always on the road which means we don't have much time to spend with them, going through figures. Now, when we have our monthly management meetings, everyone has the correct information at their fingertips," says Terblanche.

QlikView differs from most BI tools on the market in that it does not use OLAP. It loads data directly into memory, and using 64-bit technology, QlikView can provide summary level metrics and record level detail on the same architecture. "The directors of Meddata have been in the industry for a long time," says Paul Fernandes, account manager at QlikView South Africa. "They understand what data is relevant and they know what their customers want and this influenced their decision to go with QlikView."



About QlikView

QlikView SA is the South African representative and distributor for QlikTech, the Swedish developer of QlikView business intelligence and analytics software. QlikView SA provides additional consulting and implementation services to simplify business analysis for its customers, connecting more people at all levels in an organisation to the information they need. QlikView is an industry-changing application that is dramatically easier to deploy and use than traditional Business Intelligence technology. It provides instant, in-memory manipulation of massive datasets on low cost hardware, allowing affordable and widespread deployment of highly sophisticated analytic applications.

For more information about QlikView SA, visit www.qlikview.co.za. Contact details:

QlikView South Africa
Contact: Davide Hanan
Tel: (021) 680-9506
Email: davideh@qlikview.co. za

Sentient Communications
Contact: Michelle Scurr
Tel: (021) 422-4275
Email: michelle.scurr@sentientcommunications.co.za