Specialist Crafts Ltd, based in Leicester, England, has selected Rocket Software’s CorVu as to replace its previous business intelligence tool. “We needed a much better software system for business intelligence in terms of speed and more robust reporting,” said Andrew Skidmore, Systems Manager at Specialist. “CorVu has been very useful in terms of us being able to understand what we’re selling and where, and also to present the information with the speed necessary for it to have value in a sales environment that is in daily flux.”
Specialist Crafts supplies art and craft products to a broad range of educational establishments throughout the United Kingdom and the rest of the world, including primary schools, secondary schools, universities, occupational therapy departments, prisons and social service centers. It also owns several other internet brands that specialize in craft products to the end consumer.
For an online retailer such as Specialist Crafts, which sells a complete catalogue of art and craft supplies to schools and crafters throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, the ability to track sales and analyze business patterns in real time was deemed critical, however allocating the time and effort to doing so was a challenge for the 75-employee-firm.
CorVu understands the MultiValue structure of Rocket's UniData database, which is the technology underlying the Sanderson application used by Specialist Crafts. Understanding inventory and sales patterns was almost impossible before implementing CorVu.
Improving productivity, Skidmore can now create customized reports from the database within minutes. The previous system required Skidmore to query data and then manually enter the necessary information into spreadsheets - a process that took nearly 30 minutes for each daily report.
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