The Challenge

Provide a Seamless and Global View of Mission-Critical Information From Many Disparate Sources Globally

This Fortune 10 company manufactures and delivers its products globally, using many different subsidiaries, partners and vendors. Because of the decentralized nature of its business, the many different entities operating worldwide use different systems and business processes. As a result, they lacked a single point of information access for the status of product being planned, ordered, manufactured, shipped and delivered on a global basis. In addition, since the different systems had a variety of ways to represent information, it was difficult for them to exchange information in a timely manner and with reliable results.

The Solution

Superior Enterprise Solutions > RealiSES® Information Management Solution

Superior Technology Solutions' team deployed RealiSES® to enable this leading multinational company to access and integrate business critical data from many different subsidiaries, international affiliates, global partners and customers located all over the world, providing a clear, centralized view of the company's global business process execution, supported by timely and rich information.

RealiSES® enabled the company to gain a detailed view of its worldwide operations that is critically important for maintaining a dominant position in an increasingly global marketplace. The solution facilitated improved communication and cooperation among the many different companies involved in the planning, manufacturing, delivery and sales of their many product lines.

Their customers also greatly benefited by having access to timely and consistent information, as they were able to plan, order, receive, process and retail products more efficiently and faster. In return, our client benefited from increased sales throughput and access to timely retail information.

An example of the power of RealiSES® is the fact that the company's management now has a real-time view of the inventory of its products down to individual products at the retailer level for all retailers located around the globe who receive their inventory from various manufacturing plants and distribution partners. It also enabled the real-time tracking of all products being shipped on a global basis.

RealiSES provides a detailed view of our client's products and product attributes, enabling them to identify and analyze their inventory utilizing an array of business models. The decision support capabilities of RealiSES® have proved to be invaluable, enabling our client to continuously improve their business processes, on a global basis, and across all subsidiaries. The process execution and service delivery of the many business partners has been globally standardized as well, leading to the more efficient, timely and high quality management of their products.

Since RealiSES® is not a Data Warehouse and does not require information to be replicated or copied, information can be directly accessed at its source. As a result, RealiSES® ensures data integrity and real time access to data. Our client is able to immediately view important events and information as soon as they are recorded, regardless of who initiated them and where they occurred.

Having an enterprise view of global mission critical information, which was previously housed in independent "silos" by many different entities, means that new applications can be put in place to access this information to help further optimize global business processes and to optimize the worldwide manufacture, storage and delivery of products. Our client has taken advantage of the flexible and rich functionality within RealiSES® to implement new global enterprise applications, without having to make any modifications to their existing systems.

Some examples of the specific benefits of RealiSES® for this customer include all of the following:

• RealiSES® is a fully open web-based solution. Thus, the client can easily share specific data with partners on a global basis―without the need for partners to install new software or computers. RealiSES® has sophisticated user management and security functions that ensure the protection of important data and information and only provides access to the information that is most appropriate for each user.
• RealiSES® has a strong focus on quality management, measurement and reporting. These features enable the company to track and measure "exceptions" that can occur during various stages of all critical business processes. The availability of timely and detailed information about exceptions enabled the client to take corrective action proactively, preventing problems that might otherwise occur if the root cause of the issue is not corrected quickly. As a result, issues are detected and corrected prior to becoming actual problems.
• Having a centralized, real-time view of what's being planned, ordered and manufactured on a global basis enabled all business units, business partners and customers to plan resources and capacity in the most efficient and timely manner, reducing cost and minimizing cycle times.

• Global freight carriers and logistics partners now have access to more specific, detailed product information. For example, previously when a product was damaged during shipping, it could take several weeks or months for an insurance claim to be processed because the carrier did not have the specific information about the damaged product. Now, the claims process takes a fraction of that time.

• Reports and documents can be exported for use in common desktop applications (such as Excel spreadsheets), further facilitating the sharing of information. The solution also readily supports multiple languages used by the many different global participants.

RealiSES® has become a core business solution and is an integral part of this client's global information infrastructure. The solution is now being used on a daily basis by this multinational client and its many business partners and customers. The solution's functionality is being extended and enhanced on a continuous basis. As a result, our customer is able to provide a superior experience for their customers.