The Swiss industrial group Sulzer specializes in pumps, services for rotating equipment and separation, mixing and application technologies. The company employs around 14,000 people at over 180 production and service locations in more than 40 countries.

In 2012, Sulzer was looking for a strategic BI front end for data visualization and descriptive analytics to complement the SAP BW and Microsoft SQL Server-based applications in use. "In the process-oriented area, we have a rather heterogeneous IT system landscape consisting of various ERP, CRM, sales and eTendering systems, all of which are potential sources of analytical insights," explains Steffen Lange, Head of BI at Sulzer. "We were looking for a solution that would allow us to integrate and evaluate all data pools quickly and agilely."

Minutes become seconds

The choice fell on QlikView Guided Analytics. The software from Qlik was particularly convincing due to its in-memory technology: data from almost all common formats is linked in the main memory. Data access is correspondingly fast.

The first application to be created was an application for visualizing the monthly, semi-annual and annual financial statements based on the consolidated figures from SAP BPC across all company units.

Sulzer was supported by HighCoordination GmbH in the realization of the project. In addition to its expertise, the Qlik Elite Solution Provider's industry knowledge in the field of mechanical and plant engineering, in-depth process understanding, data and technology know-how with regard to the ERP systems in use at Sulzer were the main arguments in its favor. Added to this were flexibility, customer and service orientation, experience in the implementation of global projects and regional proximity. Within 20 budget days and a project duration of three months, HighCoordination developed and implemented the first version of a P&L/balance sheet cockpit based on QlikView. "Colleagues were used to waiting several minutes for the report when they ran it. If a selection was changed within the query, they had to wait again," says Lange. "With the QlikView app, several minutes became a few seconds."

Use throughout the company

The QlikView application for the Finance division proved to be a complete success and went into series production throughout the entire Group. With the support of HighCoordination and internal developers, numerous applications were developed for worldwide use. Data from around 15 IT systems, some of which are connected directly to QlikView and some of which are used as intermediate layers via data warehouses, serve as the basis.

Around 45 global QlikView applications and numerous sub-applications are used by around 1000 employees worldwide in almost all departments. The focus is on sales, finance, procurement and project management. "QlikView helps us to make better business decisions along the entire value chain - and thus to purchase parts more cheaply, to deliver our products faster, more profitably and in line with customer expectations, to identify and exploit sales potential and, of course, to minimize and standardize manual data preparation processes."

In addition to Qlik applications, Sulzer uses the add-on trueChart developed by HighCoordination, with which all relevant use cases can also be displayed in dynamic structures in accordance with International Business Communication Standards (IBCS ).

In addition, centrally controllable comments can be added to dashboards, which can be linked to all content in the BI overview. "We are particularly impressed by the ability to set and share comments in the dashboards down to line item level - including the approval process," explains the Head of BI. Among other things, trueChart is used to visualize sales figures and to orchestrate sales and production activities within the Water business unit.