Usha International wants to continue building on its success with fast and market-driven business decisions. The industry leader has selected SAP Net Weaver Business Warehouse powered by SAP HANA to enable lightning-quick data analysis.
Improve performance of company’s business analytics environment; gain greater visibility across a countrywide enterprise; optimize operations in key business areas such as sales, supply chain, and procurement are the company’s top objectives.
To address its objective, Usha International decided to implement collaborative analysis of current and future business needs; develop end-to-end strategy for business analytics and implement SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse component running on the SAP HANA database.
Usha International benefited from faster, more effective decision making and improved productivity; better control of supply chain with reduced inventory levels and lower carrying costs and future-ready platform for long-term business analysis and planning.
Usha International serves Indian consumers with a growing product portfolio that includes ceiling fans, kitchen appliances, automobile parts, and more. Usha has always been an innovator in product design and in its use of technology.
Since 2000, for example, Usha has used SAP software to help gain competitive advantage by improving process efficiency. But just as India’s demand for consumer products has grown, so too has the complexity of running a business that spans a nation of more than 1.2 billion people.
Usha now has more than 33 warehouses, 70 company-owned retail stores, and a distribution network of more than 14,000 dealers. To stay ahead of the competition, Usha needs full visibility across this widespread supply chain and the ability to respond rapidly to changing market demands.
“We have a lot of business data. To take full advantage of this resource, we need high-performance business analytics as well. That means faster data loads and faster query response times,” said Subodh Dubey, group CIO at Usha International.
“I am glad that SAP has taken the initiative to help businesses take proactive action. It’s amazing how much information is available to our managers after we implemented SAP HANA. Implementing SAP HANA has improved performance tremendously with faster data loads and better storage compression – and we have given a whole new life to our business intelligence solution,” Dubey added.
Usha decided to take their business intelligence capabilities to unprecedented new levels. And to help ensure that their business intelligence platform was built on a solid and reliable data foundation, they chose the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse component to run on the SAP HANA database.
Usha knew what it needed – even faster performance from its SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW) component, which had been growing by more than 20 percent annually in recent years.
The project team, which included SAP Consulting and value engineering experts, analyzed the company’s needs and developed a comprehensive business case. Both approaches were fully examined: adding new hardware or replacing the existing database with the SAP HANA database. With SAP HANA, company leaders saw the opportunity to pull days of lag time out of their data-gathering processes, and they appreciated the ability to integrate a variety of data sources.
“Ultimately, we recognized that SAP HANA could deliver the highperformance analytics we were looking for,” Dubey added.
As an early adopter of the technology in India, Usha worked with a dedicated SAP Ramp-Up coach and utilized SAP Enterprise Support services throughout the implementation process. The company held regular review meetings and ensured that the project was staffed with the right analytics skill sets. This approach helped Usha complete the entire project in only four weeks – rolling out the solution to 16 branch offices, 30 depots, and 4 manufacturing plants. In doing so, the company established a future-ready platform for its enterprise-wide business intelligence strategy.
SAP HANA has significantly improved system performance in terms of data compression, data loads, and query response times. This means faster reporting and better informed decision making. Usha leaders were amazed when a recent request for inventory data was answered almost instantly online.
Usha will also be using complex runtime data analysis and the ability to prototype different business scenarios to build a more demand driven supply chain. Inventory levels have already been reduced and, in some instances, out-of-date inventory eliminated. The result is better cash flow and lower inventory carrying costs. The ability to quickly analyze secondary sales data and check progress against monthly sales also helps the sales force achieve established targets.
“Reports on cash flow and daily sales are now available at the click of a button. For the first time, we have sales visibility down to the individual SKU and territory,” Dubey added.
In the coming months, Usha expects to more than double the number of employees using SAP HANA. The company intends to roll out the functionality to other areas of the business, such as manufacturing and human resources.
Usha also wants to integrate its SAP Business Objects business intelligence solutions and, ultimately, the SAP Planning and Consolidation application with SAP NetWeaver BW. The goal is to more fully utilize data from a wide variety of information sources. These include retail point-of-sale reports, the customer service portal, e-mail, and even social media. A deeper understanding of its consumers will further improve the company’s ability to respond effectively to changing market dynamics. And to think, this all started with a sewing machine.
