Land Rover opts for BI

Land Rover, the four-wheel-drive vehicle manufacturer, has turned to Cognos Inc., a business intelligence specialist, to deliver powerful analytics and clarity into its business operations. Using Cognos, field service staff can immediately see the sales and inventory data for their entire region. In turn, management can analyze whether individual dealers are on target.
As a consequence, Cognos has become a key part of the Land Rover after-sales department. If results deviate from projected targets, users can quickly drill down to the underlying information to understand why. The success of the vehicle sales project has led to additional uses of Cognos in other areas of the company, including spare parts, guarantee, finance and marketing.
"The company was faced with the challenge of having to create an ICT [information and communications technology] environment which would provide indexes, in particular in key sales and after-sales departments, showing the daily status," explains Ralf Biermann, a manager at Land Rover. "To manage the company in an efficient manner, more transparency was needed to gauge if everything was on the right track."
When Ford's Premier Automotive Group acquired Land Rover Deutschland in 2000, it faced a number of difficult challenges. Top priorities included rebuilding the entire ICT infrastructure, as well as connecting the new information systems, such as inventory control and guarantee programs, with the existing central systems in England.
"Cognos provided Land Rover with a comprehensive and flexible business intelligence solution that adapts to the complex and ever-changing needs of its business," says David McWilliam at Cognos. "In times of rapid change, the ability to easily access, analyze and report on critical business data is essential to understanding the performance of the business and to making fast, informed business decisions."