Microsoft solution helps Orion Vina better reporting and decision-making swiftly

Microsoft solution helps Orion Vina better reporting and decision-making swiftly

Through deploying a business intelligence (BI) solution based on Microsoft Excel 2013, leaders of Orion Vietnam Limited, a Korea-backed leading confectionery manufacturer with big plants in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and an expansive outlet system throughout the country, can make better decisions about resource allocation while its IT employees are now able to spend more time working on critical internal projects.

Before deploying the Microsoft’s BI tool, the company used Open Source System for management and operation such as IBM for Server or Linux for OS.

At that time, all the reports were done manually; the system remained fragmented failing to generate real-time reports based on available database to quickly provide a view or analysis on business operations to users. In addition, the data also lacked accuracy due to poor knowledge of the staff who had put the data into the system via Servers Console.

“It was a very error-prone process, resulting in missing or incomplete information and, ultimately, unreported incidents,” said Kim Cheol Yeong, IT manager at Orion Food Vina. “And the management who needed the reports didn’t get them on time.”

Orion Food Vina was interested in experimenting with a new Microsoft BI solution after longtime considerations.

“In general, it takes a period from a month to three months to discover data stream and structure as well as data standardisation to build up a database for a normal-d firm as customers may run set of various software. For building up a database collecting data from the whole organisation for a larger- firm may take years from customers, but we recognised that, Microsoft platform is easy for usage and adoptions by users as it provide multi-dimensional reports on period basis and customised reports based on user requirements,” Kim shared.

“The Microsoft’s BI solution provides the company’s high-ranking a glass view on their management through reports. Most of our employees are already using Microsoft Office products every day,” he added.

In May 2014, Orion Food Vina decided to implement a BI solution based on Microsoft Excel that provides employees with their own data analysis and visualisation capabilities.

The solution includes Microsoft Excel 2013 with Power Query for Excel, a data search engine that employees can use within Excel to query data from internal and external data sources.

The company is also using Power Query to cleanse and merge data sets from multiple sources.

“With Power Query, we can cleanse the data and also combine data easily from more than one source,” said Kim. “That really standardises information and makes the data more accurate, whereas previously a lot of the data was different because different staff had put it manually.”

The solution also includes Microsoft SQL Server Power Pivot for Excel, which employees are using to process large data sets quickly and easily.

Employees are also taking advantage of Power View in Excel to manipulate data and compile it into charts and graphs. In addition, they use Power Map, a 3-D visualisation tool for exploring and interacting with geographic data.

Microsoft’s BI platform has proven the right solution for the company to make quick and correct decisions. The solution features comprehensive built-in functionalities, easy for developing as well as for future deployment. This is also easy for third-party developers as well as users to run their solution on.

In general, using the Microsoft BI solution, the company’s employees and leaders can now quickly build and share analytical reports, which help Orion leaders make better decisions about resource allocation.

Especially, Microsoft BI solution allows users configure their specific report for usage, operations and maintenance those are standardised and do not require much works from IT professionals during deployment. The employees can quickly and easily visualise data and create their own analytical reports.

Comprehensive and accurately reporting tools of Microsoft’s BI allows company leaders and staff to access reports in real time and help the company reduce personnel costs dedicated for reporting and improving its competitiveness in the market.

In total, it helps Orion Vina Food save 20 per cent of operation cost in comparison with previous solutions. Additionally, IT employees can spend more of their time working on critical internal projects.

Orion Vietnam Limited is the Vietnam subsidiary of Orion Confectionery, a leading food company in South Korea. The company's products are exported and distributed in more than 65 countries worldwide. Well-known Orion product brands in Vietnam are Chocopie and Custard which are favoured by consumers in both domestic and international markets.

Besides plants in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Orion Food Vina opened other production plant in the northern province of Bac Ninh which was commissioned in 2007, constantly evolving and boosting Orion’ production.

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