Yellowfin’s BI solution enables internetstores to optimize its ERP processes

SOURCE: Yellowfin

The partnership will allow the German-based online bicycle and outdoor adventure equipment specialist to develop a uniform view of data from its Web-based ERP system – generated from its 30 self-owned e-commerce platforms. The agreement will enable internetstores to use Yellowfin’s BI solution to effectively track and streamline cross-departmental business procedures and resources across its multiple online shops throughout Europe.

Internetstores Head of IT, Burkhard Wagner, said that Yellowfin was chosen as a replacement to error-prone Excel-based reporting and cumbersome custom analytic queries.

“Previously, our IT department was forced to build time-consuming and hard-to-maintain custom analytic functions to interrogate separate disparate islands of data,” said Wagner.“Not only was this process inefficient, it wasn’t able to provide a complete view of our data assets from across our various data stores.  This lack of visibility meant that important data was often unavailable for reporting purposes, making it very difficult to produce accurate ad-hoc queries to understand profit margins or performance of individual products.

“As a wholly Web-based platform, Yellowfin has enabled us to create a single trustworthy view of our entire ERP system. We are now able to easily track KPIs from internetstores’ 30-plus self-owned e-commerce platforms.”

Internetstores CEO, René Marius Köhler, said that Yellowfin’s ease-of-use also enabled the retailer to “democratize” its data, making it accessible to business decision-makers throughout the enterprise, by eliminating the need to teach managers SQL.

“Not only has Yellowfin enabled us to streamline our reporting processes, while increasing its scope and accuracy, business users are also able to quickly and independently access the performance-based information they need to make better decisions,” said René Köhler. “Yellowfin’s intuitive dashboards deliver a consistent view of our most important business metrics, while its drill down, through and anyway functionalities empower users, from any business background, to explore and analyze data with a few simple clicks. Yellowfin’s self-service BI capabilities are second to none.”

Wagner said that Yellowfin’s BI solution delivered the features and functionality internetstores required, while its German-based reseller partner, incuda, made the implementation a success.

“incuda’s understanding of Yellowfin, as well as our reporting requirements, meant that we were able to put Yellowfin into production and quickly realize the benefits of intuitive enterprise-wide Web-based BI,” said Wagner.  “incuda’s expertise has played a vital role in the success of this project.”

Founder of incuda, Franz Posch, said that Yellowfin’s simplicity, combined with its functional richness, made incuda confident that the implementation would meet and exceed internetstores’ expectations.

“Yellowfin is our reporting and dashboarding partner of choice when it comes to delivering BI for e-commerce,” said Posch. “Yellowfin offers multicast integration into Web-based ERP systems and visually intuitive options to interactively present company KPIs.

“Business users can easily create individual reports and conduct analysis without requiring any programming skills.  Yellowfin is unique – we’ve found no other BI tool that’s as user-friendly and professional.”

Speaking about the Yellowfin – internetstores implementation, Yellowfin Strategic Alliances Manager for EMEA, Daniel Shaw-Dennis, said that the fast-growing online chain represented the perfect opportunity for Yellowfin to demonstrate its ability to improve business efficiencies through consumer-oriented BI.

“We’re looking forward to assisting internetstores consolidate its position as a leader in European biking and adventure equipment,” said Shaw-Dennis.  “Yellowfin will help internetstores improve a range of business efficiencies via increasing the reliability and accessibility of its data.”

With over 350 employees, internetstores hosts online bicycle and outdoor equipment stores in several European countries, including Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Spain and the Netherlands.  Its brands include specialist online bicycle stores Bikester, fahrrad.de, Brügelmann and Bikeunit, as well as CAMPZ and addnature – outdoor and adventure equipment stores.

About internetstores

internetstores is a multishop e-commerce company with bike and outdoor online shops in several European countries, including Denmark, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands and many more. Bikester, fahrrad.de, Brügelmann and Bikeunit are special bike online shops, while CAMPZ and Addnature sell outdoor and adventure equipment.