Panasonic credits next-generation business intelligence tool QlikView with helping its sales and marketing teams become more pro-active in the fiercely competitive market for consumer, industrial and business electronics.

"We've seen a phenomenal return on investment just in terms of the time we've saved," says Panasonic's operations manager Lyrishe Gouws. "Our marketers know exactly where they stand with every product and every customer, every single day. Everything is right in your face all the time - there are no more excuses!"

Gouws says that like most large organisations, Panasonic was previously dependent on reports generated from its AS400 system. "It could take days to get reports and statistical data, and people got different answers depending on exactly how they asked the questions. With QlikView our information is absolutely clear and up to date; everyone understands what the true picture is. I can click three buttons and speak to any store anywhere in the country about exactly what they sold yesterday, or last month or last year. It's incredibly powerful."

Panasonic has been running QlikView for over a year, since June 2006, and Gouws says the ease of finding information has had several unexpected benefits. "It really highlights your unknowns. With all the sales information in the organisation at our fingertips we instantly spot errors that would otherwise be lost until something went wrong or someone ran a report specifically to look for them. We have much greater confidence in our information now."

"We also definitely have greater control over the sales business," adds Gouws. "Reporting has become a breeze and it's made the sales and marketing divisions more effective. QlikView's ease of use is remarkable and everyone from the group MD to our sales team has bought into it."

In future, Gouws says she intends to extend QlikView to her accounts and debtors' book and to implement recently added functionality. "We definitely want the forecasting model -- the ability to be able to feed information back into QlikView is mindblowing."

"QlikView is a remarkable product that catches you from the first moment," concludes Gouws. "People see it and think 'Wow - what information have I been missing out on for the last few years?' The clarity of the information we're getting, plus the ease of use and the fact that it's so cost effective, have made it absolutely essential to our business. QlikView is like my cellphone, now that I've got it I can't imagine having to live without it."

About QlikView

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 (OLAP based) 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.

Editorial details

QlikView South Africa
Davide Hanan
Tel: 021 680 9506
Cell: 082 788 5791
Email: davideh@qlikview.co. za

Duo Marketing + Communications
Maria Oosthuizen
Tel: 021 683 8223
Cell: 084 506 7649
Email: maria@duomarketing.co.za