Business integration company, Red Man Technologies, will use QlikView, the data analysis software from the world's fastest-growing business intelligence (BI) vendor, QlikTech, to drop BI implementation times from years to weeks and give customers more BI freedom, flexibility, and power.
QlikView is an entirely new technology based on in-memory associative query logic that eliminates the need for the pre-aggregation of data that is common to online analytical processing (OLAP) technologies and that limits the ways in which users can query data.
Davide Hanan, managing director of QlikView SA, explains that whereas OLAP builds hierarchies of information, associative query logic (AQL) builds associations among different pieces of information.
"With OLAP-based BI, if you query your sales information you get answers based on the pre-aggregation that has been built into your system. And because that pre-aggregation is based on questions that you and your information technology (IT) people thought you might want to ask, it forces you down a particular line of enquiry. You get the answer to predefined questions.
"AQL, on the other hand, automatically makes associations among related pieces of data and, therefore, allows you to query it in any way you like, even with questions you've never thought of before. For example, you may ask for information about a particular sales person, but the system has already associated him or her with customers, targets, regions - and any other parameters relevant to sales. So, you get your answer about your sales person in a context that gives you real business insight. There is no need to build a new pre-aggregated cube - or involve your IT department."
Hanan says QlikView was designed to take advantage of the exponentially improved capacities of hardware and computer processors. "OLAP was designed when there was very little memory and processing power - and it did a great job in its day by minimising the demands it made on hardware. But this approach doesn't make sense anymore - and is a complete waste of time and resources when you have access to so much processing power and memory at such a low cost.
"AQL, by contrast, proactively uses memory and is therefore free to link any piece of data with any other.
"As a result of being memory-based, AQL is also easier to install and use. It takes no more than two hours to train even the least computer literate person to use it. And busy people like managing directors and CEOs actually like using it."
"We've chosen to offer QlikView as part of our business integration services because our objective is always to ensure that the technologies we provide are not only tightly aligned with the customer's business requirements but can deliver on them quickly, without fuss, and with least cost." says Red Man BI specialist, Chris van Zyl. "QlikView makes all that possible.
"Also, because QlikView makes unearthing and analysing the data that is already resident in, say, your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system effortless, it gives extra legs to your investment in that system. It turns what you thought was done, dusted, and stored away into new opportunities and new revenue streams.
"And, because QlikView is so incredibly flexible and versatile, it amplifies the value of any future IT investments you have to make.
"In other words, at a technology level, QlikView is to structured data what Google is to unstructured data. Like the Internet did, it will change the world.
"Our objective is to use it at a business level to position our customers to take advantage of that change - and be more agile and, therefore, more profitable."
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