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Festo AG

Festo AG logo "Thanks to our new BI solution, we can face new challenges with confidence. Not only has the cooperation with BusinessObjects proven its worth, but our employees also work more quickly, easily, and efficiently with BusinessObjects XI Release 2."

Tobias Kreutter
Project Manager
Festo AG & Co. KG

Challenge

Fast decisions are essential in today’s business world. Managers, therefore, are finding that they have to assess ever-growing amounts of information in ever-shorter periods of time. In order to analyze this data quickly and easily and, ultimately, benchmark their performance against that of the competition, more and more companies are turning to business intelligence (BI) solutions.

Established in 1925 in Esslingen, Germany, Festo AG is the global leader for pneumatic components and systems. Its more than 12,000 employees specialize in factory and process automation and complementary vocational training at 250 branches worldwide. The company has to manage information on more than 28,000 catalog products and service offerings for its 300,000 customers in 176 countries. In 1988 the company decided to implement a BI solution in order to gain control over this mass of data.

Approach

Festo's goal was to find a software vendor that could meet the requirements of its dynamic, global business through standardized, yet powerful BI solutions that are scalable and easy to update. The choice was simple: BusinessObjects™ Desktop Intelligence and BusinessObjects Web Intelligence® from Business Objects, an SAP company. "At the time, we chose Business Objects because it had the best Web-enabled, full-client solution on the market," says Tobias Kreutter, project manager at Festo. "BusinessObjects Web Intelligence has completely changed the way we collect information. Instead of spending hours searching for data, our colleagues now have fast, easy access to the information they need."

Results

When BI was first deployed at Festo 10 years ago, only top management had access to the system. Over the course of time, however, the number of BI users has grown steadily. "The Board wanted decision-makers from different areas to access a common base of information," continues Kreutter. "They should be able to concentrate on their decisions—without having to worry if the numbers are reliable."

As the number of users continued to grow, the system requirements did as well. Therefore, Festo decided to upgrade to BusinessObjects XI Release 2. The current Business Objects BI platform combines performance management functionality, reporting, query and analysis tools with data integration into a single solution. As a result, employees can access critical information at any time to support planning and decision-making processes.

The new release also allows users to create reports at runtime with a click of mouse. As a result, country managers can receive an overview of their particular country’s business performance containing the numbers from close of business Monday as soon as Tuesday morning.

The switch to BusinessObjects XI Release 2 was successfully completed in mid-2007. Today, one in 10 Festo employees—ranging from top management and technical consultants to human resources and finance—has access to BI. During the migration process, Festo not only optimized the interface to its Microsoft Office products and consolidated the existing infrastructure but also reduced the number of interfaces and the error rate as well. In addition, users now have quicker access to the desired reports and analyses, which also improves overall performance.

Ready for the Future

To secure its competitive advantage and market dominance, Festo depends on quick access to reliable information from anywhere in the world. "Thanks to our new BI solution, we can face new challenges with confidence," concludes Kreutter. "Not only has the cooperation with BusinessObjects proven its worth, but our employees also work more quickly, easily, and efficiently with BusinessObjects XI Release 2."

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