QlikNews: IndustryView
Spotlight on Manufacturing: Competing Globally
Industrial manufacturers of every size feel pressures of expanding global competition. The world’s emerging economies increase demand for raw materials to produce products and for energy to run plants and transport goods to market. Issues of escalating costs, shrinking margins and regulatory compliance increasingly strain profitability. Using QlikView, manufacturers of mill products and industrial machinery are stepping up efforts to control soaring operating costs, identify new revenue streams, and transform to more agile business processes.
New Product Innovations, Markets and Revenue Streams
Innovative products and processes have become critical competitive differentiators for industrial manufacturers. To boost revenue, mill products companies look to create niche markets for new specialty products. Industrial machinery companies increasingly depend on aftermarket products and services for new revenue streams. Both types of manufacturers strive to be more innovative with bundling value-added services at the time of an initial sale to lock in long-term revenue.
Transformation to a New Business Agility
Manufacturers’ traditional competitive battleground of wringing higher productivity and cost efficiencies from operational processes was never more important. This has led more companies to implement Six Sigma, Lean manufacturing and activity-based costing methodologies to improve performance, as well as extend them beyond the manufacturing floor to other enterprise functions. Companies need capabilities to rapidly identify and respond to opportunities faster—from demand planning and supply chain synchronization to production changeovers and distribution into new world markets.
Easing Burdens of Regulator Compliance
In addition to the rising costs of raw materials and energy, few industries pay a higher percentage of revenue for regulatory compliance reporting than industrial manufacturers, who are subject to numerous financial, environmental, health and safety, transportation and international commerce statutes to compete in world markets.
Why QlikView?
Until the emergence of QlikView’s patented in-memory associative technology, industrial manufacturers were slow to adopt BI technology due to the costs of software, training and maintenance; long implementation and applications development; IT resource demands; and poor end-user acceptance. As a result, companies had to wait weeks for updates from information systems and lacked enterprise visibility. QlikView, quickly and affordably, now enables industrial manufacturers to:
- Improve executive insights into operations, performance drivers, and risks
- Improve sales planning and performance monitoring with real-time visibility into market trends, customer accounts and sales channels
- Improve business agility for demand-driven products and aftermarket offerings with real-time visibility into manufacturing and supply chain processes
- Improve production yields, changeovers and time to market with analytically intensive performance improvement methodologies
- Simplify analyses and reporting for all forms of regulatory oversight
- Improve sustainability reporting
Learn how multinational packaging company Amcor, in an on-demand video, uses QlikView for competitive advantage here.
