Southern African fishing and cold storage company, Oceana Brands is now able to monitor its effect on the environment on a day-to-day basis. Since implementing business intelligence and data analysis software from QlikView South Africa, the company is able to track, and where necessary, reduce, the usage of both renewable and non-renewable resources used in its daily operations.

One of the benchmarks which Oceana takes very seriously is the JSE's Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Index. This follows the King II Report on Corporate Governance which stipulates that companies must balance their quest for profit against the needs for environmental, economic and social sustainability. "We embrace the concept of triple bottom line reporting", says Mike Copeland, Operations Director at Oceana Brands. "Sustainability is the driving force and is becoming increasingly important with our customers. They're demanding that their seafood comes from eco-friendly fisheries and that the harvesting and processing is done in a sustainable manner. We obviously also need to comply with Government legislation and permit conditions require that we have standards based on international practices to which we need to conform."

Reporting and monitoring is made more complex by the fact that Oceana Brands comprises two operating divisions within four statutory companies and five product categories. By using QlikView, the company is able to see a consolidated report across all divisions, on a single screen. "We can also drill down to the individual business units, and this facilitates accountability," continues Copeland. "We record internal consumption of materials as well as normal losses and damages. Once the transactions are recorded, the database can be analyzed intelligently and corrective action taken. For example, we can compare a particular division's consumption of materials against that of the previous financial year. However, if that division's output has increased in the current financial year, that also has to be taken into account. The benefits of this analysis cannot be over-emphasized. In fact, we've included the QlikView analysis as a regular item on our monthly board meeting agenda which enables the team to be pro-active.

Prior to implementing QlikView, Oceana wasn't able to obtain a single view of all relevant data. Each business unit within the group recorded information separately due to the accounting processes involved. "The reports generated weren't in an electronic format, which made analysis and manipulation of the information virtually impossible," says Copeland. "The QlikView model runs on top of our existing database which automatically feeds in the data inputted by the various business units. There's no manual intervention at all - the system is automatically updated every night."

Unlike traditional BI tools, QlikView does not make use of OLAP and is able to analyze massive amounts of data at unprecedented speed by loading data directly into memory. By taking full advantage of 64-bit technology's memory capacity, QlikView can provide summary level metrics and record level detail on the same architecture.

"Training is complete and we anticipate the rollout to all the relevant business units to be complete within the next six months," says Jacobus Loubser, Consultant Engineer at QlikView. "This BI model is a dynamic one in that it enables users to raise new questions all the time, so we look forward to a longstanding relationship with Oceana."

"This is definitely a future-driven project," continues Copeland. "Increasing pressure is being placed on companies to be responsible for the effect they have on the environment and Oceana is one of the leaders in our industry when it comes to this type of reporting. We started doing this long before our customers called for it. Overseas, various audits are conducted and companies rewarded for their reduced usage of resources. It's only a matter of time before this becomes a reality in South Africa."

About Oceana

Oceana Group Limited was incorporated in 1918. Its shares are listed on JSE Limited (JSE) and the Namibian Stock Exchange (NSX). Oceana is involved in the fishing and allied services sector. It engages in the catching, processing and procurement of marine species including pilchard, anchovy, redeye herring, lobster, horse mackerel, squid, tuna, abalone, hake and other deep-sea species. Products are sold through international and local marketing channels. In addition, Oceana provides extensive cold storage and fruit handling facilities. Oceana employs 1 325 permanent staff, and during periods of seasonal fishing activity over 1 750 additional employment opportunities are created. For more information about Oceana, visit www.oceana.co.za.

About QlikView South Africa

QlikView South Africa is the South African representative and distributor for QlikTech, the Swedish developer of QlikView business intelligence and data analytics software. 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. QlikView South Africa also provides consulting and implementation services to simplify business analysis and to connect more people at all levels in an organisation to the information they need.

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