"Data by itself is useless. You have to be able to turn data into information and turn information into decision-making. Qlik's associative logic presents insights to you in a way that wouldn't be clear if you were looking at a spreadsheet, empowering you to make informed decisions," says Paul Marketos, Director at IsoMetrix.
Overview
IsoMetrix is a South African Qlik OEM partner, and a leading supplier of integrated software for governance, risk and compliance.
The business operates with the belief that proper management of governance, risk and compliance is not only good for the planet and the people who inhabit it, but it also leads to more profitable and resilient businesses.
The IsoMetrix team maintains close and open relationships with its customers, suppliers and staff to ensure shared success. It leverages solutions for social and community benefit as well as contractor, supplier and third-party management. As a result, the business develops and delivers innovative products that are enjoying incredible success rates in the market.
Challenges
Almost a decade ago, before business intelligence tools were at the forefront of innovation in the industry, IsoMetrix had the foresight to partner with SA Qlik.
As far back as 2011, the business's leaders realised that business intelligence would become a key driver of effective business management.
"We have been quite prescient strategically in this regard. A number of our competitors are embracing commercial business intelligence tools now, whereas we saw a long time ago that it was only going to become more difficult to compete if we continued developing analytics technology in-house," confirms Marketos.
Marketos believes partnerships breed good business, and if there's a solution that delivers what customers need, why try reinventing the wheel?
"We're at the point where writing your own business intelligence (BI) analytics software would be akin to building your own database software. Why would you do that when there is fantastic software out there, ready to use?" he asks.
With this in mind, IsoMetrix sought a solution that was commercially available, agile and flexible, and Qlik ticked all of the boxes.
Solution
Marketos confirms that the Qlik platform has certainly delivered on its promises.
"We sell software, powered by Qlik, for health, safety and environmental risk management. Our customers need to understand trends and exceptions within their organisations," he adds. "They need to know why injuries are occurring, what the leading indicators are, why incidents are presenting in a shaft or on a site."
Internally, IsoMetrix also makes use of the Qlik platform. It forms part of the business's internal quality management system, used to track its sales pipelines, help desk, and action and project management. The business currently has over 160 users, accessing half a dozen Qlik apps daily.
"We find Qlik to be a very useful tool to understand our business better. For example, in our offices, you'll see Qlik dashboards reflected on TV screens, showing urgent calls, open calls, overdue calls, etc. We definitely get a lot of benefit from using Qlik, both internally and externally."
Due to its intuitive nature, implementations are made easy and it takes hardly any time for users to get up to speed. "The benefits are easy to sell, many customers confirm that they have a strict Tableau or Power BI policy when we first present, yet we've never not implemented Qlik," he adds.
Benefits
"By effectively associating information, we can understand correlations you would never discover by looking at flat reports; this is what makes Qlik so beneficial," states Marketos.
Internally, IsoMetrix has experienced real business benefits. "Qlik has made us much better at selling our software; it's what management sees, it's what they use, and this has been a boon for us to sell our own software," he adds.
Externally, IsoMetrix customers are benefiting from the efficiencies the tool delivers. Marketos explains that most of these customers have expensive staff doing clerical work. "These HR assets are spending huge amounts of time generating reports and preparing management packs. Now, with Qlik, what they used to spend days and weeks on, they can now do in an instant." He adds that the new storyboarding functionality delivers dynamic management pack reports that are simply refreshed every month. "This ensures massive efficiencies to management."
Transnet, for example, suffered with disparate data systems, most of which were based on paper. Injuries were recorded, but no analysis was conducted. "The data was in the company, but it was not accessible. Once we implemented the IsoMetrix solution, the customer became aware that, for example, they had high instances of hand injuries. As a result, they put processes in place to address this, including training and the use of specific PPE. Without the Qlik dashboards, they would not have had this insight, and problems would have persisted," adds Marketos.
Implementation advice
Marketos offers the following advice to businesses considering implementing IsoMetrix/Qlik solutions: "Data by itself is useless. You have to be able to turn data into information and turn information into decision-making. Qlik's associative logic presents insights to you in a way that wouldn't be clear if you were looking at a spreadsheet, empowering you to make informed decisions."
The future
IsoMetrix is working to move older customers from QlikView to Qlik Sense. Connected to this, the business is focusing on delivering real self-service, making the full process 100% seamless, while empowering users to be completely self-sufficient in their dashboard creation and maintenance.
"We're also experiencing a strong push for predictive analytics, so we're watching what Qlik is doing in this space," concludes Marketos. "Other than that, it's business as usual. The system works so nicely, we'll be driving the delivery of more of the same."
Solution overview
Customer Name: IsoMetrix
Industry: Governance, risk and compliance
Function: Internally: quality management, sales pipelines, help desk, project management
Externally: Built into IsoMetrix software implemented at customers
Geography: Johannesburg, South Africa (operating countrywide)
Challenges: To find a solutions partner that would deliver commercially available, agile and flexible business intelligence functionality
Solution: IsoMetrix selected Qlik, implemented QlikView both internally and at its customers, and is now implementing Qlik Sense
Benefits:
* More effective quality management;
* Reliable help desk tracking;
* Helping clients pull together disparate data from varying sources;
* Faster turnaround time on reporting;
* Greater understanding of reports, in an associative way; and
* Increased sales to customers, delivering software that is commercially available, agile and flexible
The OEM partnership delivers immense benefits to customers across Africa, combining IsoMetrix solutions with Qlik's associative difference.
Operational efficiencies empowering customers to spend less time on drawing up reports and more time on real-time analysis and strategic planning.
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