News

[Johannesburg, 7 May 2009] - Standard Bank of South Africa's Corporate and Investment Banking division recently partnered with BI Planning Services (BIPS) for the implementation of a reporting solution that now enables the bank to generate reports to fulfil its reporting requirements in terms of the regulatory requirements that are underpinned by the Basel II accord.

[Johannesburg, 16 September 2009] - Global engineering company Sandvik SA recently partnered with BiPS for the successful migration of its business intelligence (BI) environment from IBM Cognos 7 to IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence.

The migration, which impacted the organisation's offices throughout South Africa as well its branches in Africa, now sees Sandvik's business benefiting from improved Cognos 8 support, which in turn has enhanced its equipment analysis, and ultimately, service delivery to its South African mining clients.

[Johannesburg, 7 March 2008] - Information and communication technology (ICT) is a key component within business. It underpins the way each department works and, ultimately, keeps the data, network and systems that they rely on in working order. In most organisations, if ICT shuts down, so does the business. This puts the importance of the ICT department into perspective – it is crucial to the effective and efficient running of a company. However, staffing the ICT department appropriately is a challenge given the dearth of ICT skills in the local market.

[Johannesburg, 18 April 2008] - The need within businesses for a data warehouse which provides a single repository for information has become ever more apparent as data continues to proliferate and information from a variety of sources across multiple applications adds complexity. However, as many organisations are discovering, once the data warehouse has been built it requires specific skills sets to support and maintain it.

Says Jannie Strydom of BI Planning Service (BIPS), a company that specialises in the design, development and deployment of data warehouse, business intelligence and performance management solutions: "Businesses are fast realising the benefits of outsourcing non-core functions to specialists. Data warehousing is a critical function that fits well into this category.

[Johannesburg, 10 July 2008] - In large corporates, the red tape of putting together an enterprise data warehouse and reporting solution is inhibiting efforts by key staff to get the information they need now.

This has put supposed best practices, like restricting `tactical` software developments, under the spotlight. Should organisations restrain this kind of innovation or will encouraging it assist them to eventually roll out their enterprise data warehouse and reporting system faster?

[Johannesburg, 31 January 2007] - With between 400 000 and 500 000 pre- and post-paid customers, Orange Botswana commands 46% of that country's mobile market. Data analysis is critical to ensure customer service excellence and ongoing competitiveness.

With BI Planning Services (BIPS) the mobile operator has made this a reality, increasing productivity and better informing decisions that affect operations and strategy.
Says Lillian Ndlovu, BI Manager at Orange, Botswana: "With our subscriber base growing at a rate of approximately 15 000 new customers a month, we need to concentrate on analysis. However, our reporting system, which depended on manual scripts run from our two databases (one for prepaid and the other for postpaid customers), was too slow and unsophisticated to enable this."

[Johannesburg, 26 February 2007] - Recognising a need for specialised training that gives business users practical high-end skills they can implement immediately, BI Planning Services (BIPS), which designs, develops and deploys data warehouses, business intelligence and performance management solutions, has launched Dexford Learning Academy.

Says Daphne Seiler, CEO at Dexford Learning Academy: "Despite the fact that there are numerous training organisations out there, our clients have continuously requested training from us directly.

[Johannesburg, 2 April 2007] - Maxiprest Tyres, a leading player in the tyre and retreading industry in South Africa, is presently concluding organisational reengineering.
To improve the identification of key business performance issues it has, with the assistance of BI Planning Services (BIPS), initiated the development of an information management system which will form the foundation of a fully fledged business intelligence system.

Explains Peter van Boeckel, IT manager at Maxiprest Tyres: "Maxiprest employs over 2 000 people in a national and regional network of 16 retreading operations and 75 service centres. We rely on an ERP system that was developed in-house and, with only a financial reporting system in place, we needed a solution that would provide us access to information that would assist us to strengthen sales and marketing, and fix operational fundamentals."

[Johannesburg, 11 April 2007] - Medihelp's ongoing commitment to building an infrastructure that enhances efficiency and improves service delivery within the organisation is being assisted by a select group of service providers.

BI Planning Services' (BIPS) depth of experience and specialised knowledge of the Cognos Business Intelligence application has ensured the medical aid administrator can depend on a stable, reliable system for its daily operations.

[Johannesburg, 12 September 2007] - The ever intensifying use of technology at all levels of business and society means computer literacy is rapidly becoming a prerequisite to enter the job market, advance in the workplace and even participate in government processes.

While skills development is a legislated requirement, many organisations have not yet tapped into the process and productivity enhancements that result from empowering entry level staff with basic computer skills.