Enterprise-Wide Distribution Software and Solutions - Information Systems and Business Intelligence

To drive the success of a distribution operation, it is critical to know now what trends are taking shape that could impact future performance. Real-time access to information beyond the financials is critical to gaining visibility into the root cause of trends. Apprise® Distribution's executive information system provides dynamic, drill-down access into standard inquiries and tools to get at the root cause of business performance. Optional business intelligence tools, powered by Cognos PowerPlay®, leverage pre-designed and customizable three-dimensional data cubes to flexibly mine data and get the answers to critical business questions.

Key Benefits

• Fully integrated information system gives visibility into business performance across all operations and enables performance history and trends to be seen in real-time
• Drill-down capabilities provide easy access to summary or detailed information, including original documents, to get to the root cause of business performance results
• Optional pre-designed data cubes deliver powerful on-demand information about common business performance metrics, including goals versus results, sales, bookings, inventory, purchasing, warehousing, accounts receivable performance, and more
• Easily manipulate data views and apply data filters to identify trends, and quickly take action to maximize business performance
• Leverage customer and product-level analysis to gain deep insights into customer and product profitability and to make optimal decisions regarding customer segments and product lines
• Utilize flexible analysis tools to understand sales performance by sales representative, customer, and product, and to gain visibility into product and customer sales volumes, revenues, and profitability in order to drive sales performance improvements
• Optimize supplier selection through a deeper comprehension of supplier delivery performance and costs
• Improve control over business results through real-time, time-based ratio and cash flow analysis
• Comprehensive on-line financial inquiries give access to more timely information, including on-demand access to balance sheet and income statement results
• Side-by-side performance comparisons help identify business trends and drivers and enable the implementation of appropriate corrective actions
• Customizable data cubes enable the creation of inquiries that are most meaningful to a specific business