When Soleras was put to the test in 2012 with a highly ambitious growth strategy, the company knew they needed help in streamlining processes to meet the goals set forth in the time limit they were given. Two years into the challenge, they had nudged up sales of sputtering equipment, but they needed to demonstrate rapid growth to meet the seven-year deadline. To do that, they needed more comprehensive view of their global business.
“With a business model and set up like ours, it’s very difficult to capture and analyze all costs and margins across all products and business areas, from purchase to production to sales,” says Ringo Vandenberghe, Soleras IT Manager.
With an inefficient data sharing model, Soleras found it difficult to keep up with the fierce competition and fast-paced nature of the high-tech display sector.
“We see more and more competitors emerging in high-growth markets,” says Vandenberghe. “This means our margins come under pressure and the throughput time has to be less and less, which means we need better control of planning and costs.”
Trusted information, fast
More specifically, employees needed faster and more trusted access to company data. With static Excel spreadsheets employees used for information analyses and sharing, there were no data visualization capabilities, uniform reports, or automatic updates that employees could rely on for better insight.
“We have big data cubes where vast amounts of information is stored. With Excel, it was very difficult to extract the information you were looking for. It took a lot of time to create reports and there was always a risk of using the wrong information ... Excel cost us a lot of efficiency and time.”