Insights-as-a-service enables real-time analysis for timely decisions

Challenge

EXL’s client, a 50-year-old, global leader in food and nonfood distribution with 300+ distribution centers worldwide, needed a better way to analyze information for insightful decision-making. Manual processes for compiling the data needed for weekly and monthly reports took too long to complete, depriving key executives of critical, real-time information at the point of decision.

  • Multiple, disparate systems and processes created information gaps.
  • KPIs and reports were siloed across multiple departments.
  • Valuable time was wasted extracting data from ERPs and other databases, cleaning the data and producing traditional spreadsheet reports.
  • The process involved multiple touchpoints, preventing real-time analysis.
  • Lack of advanced analytics and BI reporting prohibited drill down analysis.
  • Limited visibility into trends due to size limitations of spreadsheets

The client chose EXL to provide an Insights-as-a-Service program to enable best-in-class analytics for their finance organization.

A leading global food distributor leveraged EXL’s strong analytics capabilities to establish a state-of-the-art Analytics Center of Excellence.

Solution

EXL proposed an Analytics Center of Excellence (CoE), run by a team of analytics experts and supported by stateof-the-art business intelligence technology, to inform business and finance leaders at the moment of decision.

EXL targeted frequent, complex reports for automated processing, saving the company time, labor and expense, while improving accuracy, adding real-time insights, and providing granular details.

EXL engineered the CoE based on indepth analysis of company KPIs and the automation required to monitor and report on activities in real-time. The team created data models using an extract-transformload (ETL) tool for data integration and designed a graphical dashboard for effective drill-down analysis and reporting. Reports included:

  • Periodic performance compared to budget
  • Customer penetration on KPIs such as:
    • Volume
    • Net sales value
    • Salesforce margin down to manager and front sales executive levels

EXL also trained the client’s team and created self-service tools for users to perform their own analysis.

Outcomes

EXL’s Analytics CoE improved the client’s data collaboration and standardized reporting by enabling teams across disciplines to converge and share their distinct knowledge, data and insights.

  • Reduced report creation time by more than 75%, allowing more time for analyzing patterns, trends and customer buying behaviors
  • Empowered the team through access to actionable insights and information for data-driven decision-making
  • Enabled segmentation of customers and delivery routes based on sales metrics
  • Supported adoption of analytics at all levels and functions
  • Paved the way for standardized analytics tools across the organization
  • Created single-source reporting for improved accuracy, efficiency, and monitoring
  • Enabled data-driven sales performance measurement, highlighting opportunities for continuous improvement

To learn more about EXL’s analytics tools and expertise, please visit EXLservice.com.