Giant Bicycle, Inc., the sole authorized U.S. distributor for the world’s largest builder of top quality bicycles and frames, has been using TARGIT since 2003 and the solution is vital to the company’s everyday operations. "Especially for the Sales department," says Jean Scott, IT Business Analyst at Giant. "Sales Management can’t live without TARGIT; it is used on a daily basis." A company like Giant where multiple different orders and shipments are going out every day needs the information regarding these transactions daily since they are utilizing that information in Purchasing, Accounting and Sales.

"A tool like TARGIT gives us the ability to look at all that information easily", Jean Scott says. The Sales Department benefits especially from being able to make "on-the-fly" analyses. "Ad-Hoc reporting is easy to create in TARGIT; thus, we save time and resources", Jean Scott adds. The Sales Management Team uses the analysis capabilities within TARGIT to create reports showing statistics based on all levels. "With TARGIT, it is easy for the Sales Department to get an instant overview of the best selling bike and the different categories of products and to act accordingly hence improving their position in the market. The Sales Managers use the results from TARGIT at the annual national sales meeting each year as well", Jean Scott tells.

Smooth upgrading

Almost two years ago the solution was upgraded to a newer version. "We utilized TARGIT Consulting Services to perform the upgrade. Our experience with the upgrade was excellent, everything went smoothly", says Jean Scott, who was tasked to lead the project with TARGIT. Giant combined the BIA Inventory cube with their existing cubes and expanded their cubes to include and combine data for inventory, purchasing, sales, and warranty. One of the major changes to their cubes included the addition of forecasting, which is done in AX based on specific company requirements. These requirements are handled in the cube making the forecasting figures available in TARGIT. Recently, Giant also upgraded from AX 3.0 to AX 2009 in house and making the relationship changes for TARGIT was relatively simple. "Time was spent modifying the ETL scripts for the OLAP cube. However, all TARGIT related tasks took less than a few hours", Jean Scott says.

TARGIT training has delivered huge cost savings

In addition, Jean Scott attended the TARGIT BI Basics (TBIB) and TARGIT Certified Professional (TCP) training classes. "The training was extremely helpful. After taking the TBIB class, I have a better understanding of how to utilize the front end features. The TCP class taught me how to properly create the cubes and how to make the connections. The class seemed difficult at the time, but the manual from the class proved invaluable going forward, says Jean Scott and continues: "The TCP class is not just about TARGIT, it is about OLAP which is universal." The class was an initial investment for Giant, but in the long term, it has paid for itself many times over in consulting costs as Giant is now able to make changes to the cube internally.

Our Favorite Feature

Giant’s favorite feature is the Drill down feature. "I like the ability to create multiple objects in an analysis and to drill into the criteria effecting the other objects", says Jean Scott. "Most people are used to the traditional flat excel reports, but once they see the multi-object drill down feature, they see other possibilities in using the tool to get the data more efficiently. Since the TARGIT upgrade and the cube modification/customization, we have expanded the usefulness of the tool. It is an integrated part of the daily business process. I do not know how we would function without TARGIT", Jean Scott concludes.


Contact information:

TARGIT Inc. US Country Manager Ulrik Pedersen

Mail: up@targit.com – Tel: (+1) 813 933 4600 / (+1) 813 362 3831

GIANT Inc. BI Analyst Jean Scott

Mail: JeanScott@GiantBicycle.com – Tel: (+1) 805 267 4600