“Business Intelligence” Will Boost Productivity

20 October 2009
News release

“Business Intelligence” Will Boost New Zealand’s Productivity

More and more New Zealand companies are embracing “business intelligence” as a way to boost their productivity and gain the edge on their competitors.

A relatively new field, business intelligence is about helping companies gain greater insight into their operations, enabling them to perform more effectively and plan more strategically.

Although its usage has been widespread in the United States since the late 1990s, BI – as it is known – has only recently entered the consciousness of many New Zealand businesses.

Leading the sector is Auckland-based Stellar Consulting, established in 2007 by a group of BI specialists, including managing director Grant Broadbent.

“Many companies are good at collecting operational data but they do not have the systems or processes in place to turn that data into business insight,” he says.

“Stellar uses the latest business intelligence concepts and technologies to build that analytical capability for companies – enabling them to identify and monitor productivity improvement and growth opportunities. Once companies realise what BI can do for their business, they are quick to embrace it.”

Broadbent says, because the NZ market is immature when it comes to understanding business intelligence, some Kiwi companies view BI expenditure as discretionary in difficult economic times like we’ve experienced this year.

“However, this is precisely the time when companies should be investing in business intelligence in order to perform more efficiently and capture market share from competitors.

“BI has come a long way in recent years and most businesses we talk to are pleasantly surprised by what can be achieved with a relatively small investment. The days of costly monolithic BI systems have passed – we’re talking about rapid, ‘right-size’ solutions addressing real business problems and delivering real value to companies of all sizes.”

Current clients of Stellar include large organisations such as Telecom, Fonterra, PGG Wrightson, Manukau City Council and, more recently, mid-tier businesses such as Vitaco, formed from the merger of Healtheries and Nutralife.

“For Vitaco, Stellar helped ease the pain of integrating the Healtheries and Nutralife businesses by adding a single reporting layer over their two independent ERP systems. This proved much cheaper and easier than trying to combine the two systems, and meant Vitaco could focus on managing core business activities much sooner than would otherwise have been possible,” says Broadbent, who previously worked at NCR and Oracle.

Because Stellar is independent, he says it can work across the board with the likes of Oracle, SAP and Microsoft to develop the best business intelligence solution for each customer’s needs, regardless of the technology platform.

“Stellar has an established track record of providing BI solutions to customers on time and on budget. We present a high value, low risk proposition to our customers because we know what we’re doing, we plan our projects meticulously, and we are free of the corporate shackles.”

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