"Right, actionable insights"
HartingBank stands for staggering numbers. This Dutch B2B supplier of care and rehabilitation equipment has no fewer than 150,000 objects in circulation. Add to this the countless customer contacts and the complex logistics operations for sales and rental, service and maintenance. And you get a data deluge that puts the relationship between BI and business under high pressure. A situation that sooner or later every supply chain of this size will experience. OptimEyes took the pressure off the kettle. Felix Motzheim , Medux BI Manager for HartingBank, explains enthusiastically how.
Data quality from 56 to 96%
Felix: “It’s unbelievable where we are in such a short time! Our data quality increased from 56 to 96%. And more importantly: the business actually uses that data, because it is no longer data, but actionable insights. OptimEyes provided the business with actionable insights and confidence in it. We are now on the same page.”
Lots of data, few insights
Every supply chain hits its limits early on late, when the departments involved start talking side by side ( misalignments ) .
Felix: “The mutual trust evaporates when there are no uniform definitions. As a result, the dialogue between BI and business is gradually becoming more difficult.” Logical too, if one comes from Venus and the other from Mars : the two do not understand each other without a translator. That is the job of the individual dashboard. But if that doesn’t do its job, things will go awry.
Trust comes on foot, but goes on horseback
Felix: “We ran into that mismatch. It wasn’t even a matter of ill will, mind you. But of too generic dashboards that did not connect spot-on with the business and thus provided actionable insights .” Such dashboards miss the mark, causing the user to start tinkering themselves. Quite weed, because his confidence in the data evaporated very quickly.
“For us, the ultimate alarm bell was billing that couldn’t keep up. It was the result of a chain of events. Due to the mistrust in data quality, Planning had fallen back on the manual printout of the maintenance schedules. That trusted Execution then again not. As a result, invoicing lost a disproportionate amount of time to make the invoice match the contract.”
Confrontational, but understanding
The OptimEyes data cavalry was called in.
Felix: “The first meeting was immediately a relief. I thought: these guys don’t leave anything blue-blue, they get to the bottom of the problem. And with such eagerness, such drive! They just said it like it was. But never pedantic, but sparring and with a lot of patience.
In this way they smoothed out the inevitable bumps in the process: by entering into discussions with all parties involved: with us (BI), the business, management and other external parties that were working on improvement. Even despite the necessary management changes, this ongoing dialogue quickly resulted in sustainable results.”
Confidence regained
The trust is now back: in the data, and therefore in each other. No wonder that OptimEyes’ motto is ‘ Everything is data ‘. Solve the data problem with actionable data insights: then the symptoms disappear like snow in the sun.
Felix: ”The difference is big, but are we there now? No not yet. Although the proof of concept of the OptimEyes recipe has been unequivocally delivered for me:
Structure the data into the insights the user expects – we call this the ‘menu’.
Ensure its adoption and performance management.
It is striking that our BI is increasingly being asked for additional insights. You can tell that the snowball was rolling.”
Money well spent
Felix: “Blind trust is never good, but with these guys I came pretty close. And rightly so, as it turns out, because the investment has paid for itself twice over. The many new insights resulted in additional improvements.”
Asked how Felix would describe OptimEyes, he answers: “Their strength lies in their rare combination: expertise in data, performance management and continuous improvement coupled with deep-rooted industry knowledge of supply chain processes.
More than any other party, OptimEyes helps:
the business to ask the right questions;
the process manager to identify the bottlenecks;
the BI team to build the right data models;
the organization to speak unambiguous language and convert it into actionable insights .
Even though the process ended there with us, they would also do an excellent job of managing and embedding the results.”
Recommended
Would Felix recommend OptimEyes to other BI managers?
Felix: “Definitely. He is an excellent sparring partner with an enormous drive. The passion explodes. That also gives you a lot of energy.”