Shoprite
Takes Control Of Its Data Quality To Improve Business
Efficiency With Solution From BI Practice
Cape Town, South Africa, October 5, 2005 : Shoprite, Africa's
largest food retailer, has selected Sybase SA’s BI Practice,
to assist with its enterprise data quality initiative and the implementation
of the ATHANOR data management solution from Similarity Systems, for
which Sybase is the local reseller. The installation is aimed at enabling
Shoprite to take control of its data quality, realise savings in operational
costs and streamline its supply chain management for greater business
efficiency.
According to Derick van Heerden, head Architect at Shoprite, the implementation
was carried out following the successful completion of a pilot project
that addressed data quality issues with its branch location data and
created a consolidated single view and source of that data. “The
pilot project was initially scheduled for a two month period, but long
before that the ATHANOR solution had demonstrated value in helping us
address the data quality issues we experienced.”
Based on the experience gained from the pilot project, Shoprite is to
use ATHANOR to design, implement and deploy its enterprise-wide initiative
for the automated cleansing and standardisation of data including real-time
data management. “The major benefit of real-time data management
is that quality checks can be done on the fly, as data is being entered
into the system,” adds van Heerden.
Bryn Davies, Practice Manager at the BI Practice, points out that most
large retail organisations find they need to manage data quality at multiple
points across the enterprise and that internal data alignment is essential
to efficient supply chain management. “Moving towards a single
best-of-breed solution such as ATHANOR enables Shoprite to implement
a standardised approach to achieving high-quality data that has all the
advantages of reuse, quality control and centralised management.”
Davies says that by identifying data quality issues early in the effort
and then using that information to drive data quality management, cleansing
and standardisation processes, Shoprite can dramatically reduce the time
it takes to address the issues and provide an accurate data foundation
for successful data migration projects and new system implementations.
He continues by saying that the primary output that ATHANOR produces
is standardised quality information, which can be treated as an enterprise
asset and ultimately lowers costs of maintenance associated with duplication
and the general inefficiencies of non-quality data.
Shoprite’s van Heerden says that Shoprite has seen the potential
for realising massive cost savings through the use of this solution. “It
has enabled us to address many data quality issues in a short period
of time and has laid the foundation for company-wide data quality improvements,”
he adds.
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About BI Practice
The BI Practice deploys the world's most trusted business intelligence
solutions with its independent brainpower and expertise, to help organisations
transform the quality and intelligence of their business information
for optimum business performance. We help customers align performance
management with critical business procedures, enabling better decision-making
and real business insight every day.
About Shoprite
The Shoprite Group of Companies, Africa's largest food retailer, operates
763 corporate outlets in 17 countries across Africa, the Indian Ocean
Islands and southern Asia. The Company's head quarters are situated
in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Shoprite Holdings Ltd
is a public company listed on the JSE Securities Exchange, with secondary
listings on both the Namibian and Zambian Stock Exchanges. Its ownership
therefore lies in the hands of its more than 6 000 shareholders. The
Group is currently implementing a strategic expansion programme to
maintain its position as the leading food retailer on the continent.
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