Shinhint Group Gains Business Insights and Improves Decision Making with IBM Cognos software

Overview

Challenge
Shinhint wanted to strengthen management with timely information from different focus areas

Solution
A business intelligence (BI) solution that provides users with a single view of business performance across the company, that is easy to use and manage

Shinhint Group is a prominent ODM/OEM manufacturer of electro acoustic products in Hong Kong and China. Since its founding in 1990, Shinhint Group has been providing its international customers with leading-edge design and quality products, including multimedia speaker systems and headsets for a wide range of devices. With its innovative technology and ability to identify market trends, Shinhint Group has kept ahead of its competition and now employs more than 4,300 people at its offices and production facilities.

Key Benefits
Reduced time to build the application and reports from months to days; improve access to reports; short deployment time with minimal IT resources

Challenge Faced

To maintain its leading position, the management team at Shinhint Group wanted to enable faster and better decision making and improve business performance by implementing a balanced scorecard solution that provided a holistic view of the company performance. After Shinhint’s management team had finalized overall strategy, and the objectives, targets, definitions and formulas for the Balanced Scorecard, the IT department had only 28 days to roll out the Balanced Scorecard System.

The management team required six scorecards – one to measure overall company performance and five for the key departments. These scorecards include 99 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in the area of Financial, Customer, Internal Business Process, and Learning and Growth. For the monthly review meetings, the management team required a simple onepage summary report. This summary report needed to be linked to the detail behind the KPIs so that the information could be easily accessed upon demand.

Implementing security was another challenge. The data was extracted from a range of data sources drawn from different departments, and it was necessary to put in security mechanisms to control access for different users. For example, only a handful of authorized users can access highlyconfidential information, some users may be authorized to input data while some are able to approve KPIs but not others.

Strategy Followed

When Hermen Yau, Group IT Manager, Shinhint Group was tasked to roll out a balanced scorecard solution for Shinhint, he contacted IBM via the IBM website and received a call on the same day. Hermen was impressed with the fast response and excellent service provided by IBM. Having been given positive recommendations from Cognos users, he decided to implement the IBM Cognos business intelligence (BI) solution.

With only 28 days for implementation, the IBM team was able put the new system in place in a timely manner, allowing Hermen to build metrics, scorecards and the report interface using intuitive wizards and design tools. From an IT perspective, the ease with which the IBM Cognos BI solution could be deployed allowed Hermen to implement the program quickly using the existing enterprise IT infrastructure and his limited IT resources.

Since the balanced scorecard contained sensitive and confidential information, it was also imperative that the tool allowed restricted user access to information according to users’ job role. The Balanced Scorecard Application at Shinhint allowed Hermen to set access permission down to the individual KPI level. This security mechanism provided the flexibility to assign users with different levels of authorization to view, input or approve KPIs.

Benefits Realized

Shinhint Group has been pleased with the ability to track performance of the company and each key department with different metrics and different levels of user access. Management is now able to make informed decisions, while users have instant access to up-to-date data and can generate reports tailored to their needs.

According to Hermen Yau, applications similar to Shinhint’s balanced scorecard project generally take several months to complete using traditional programming approaches. Instead, the prototype for the Balanced Scorecard project with a complex data structure, more than 100 queries and reports, and more than 500 formulas for measurement metrics, took less than 10 days to complete. Shinhint Group appreciated the fact that actual implementation of this complicated project took less than 30 days.

The IBM solution addressed Shinhint’s security needs for role-based access to data. Shinhint was able to gain efficiency and simplify security by reusing Windows Active Directory for authentication and authorization.

The Web-based deployment model did not require additional IT resources for installation and management of client desktop software. This enabled Shinhint Group to get the balanced scorecard system up and running successfully in a very tight timeframe of 30 days, and keep deployment and maintenance costs to a minimum.

Another benefit of the Web-based environment is easy access to scorecard reports anywhere, anytime. The management team simply needs a mobile device, such as a phone or notebook computer with Internet access, to tap into the information.

The scorecard report provides a simple visual presentation of how each metric is performing against the company target by colour scheme and trend arrows, allowing management to identify the status, growth and any problem areas at a glance. A primary owner has been assigned to each metric to ensure everyone understands who is accountable and that performance issues are not overlooked.

“With IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence solution, we can get first hand company performance information and improve operational efficiencies with data-driven business decisions to stay ahead of competition. We are very pleased with the work of the IBM team because they not only provided the technology, but they also shared best practice and industry knowledge which helped to speed up the implementation adoption process.”
– Hermen Yau, Group IT Manager,
Shinhint Group

About IBM Cognos BI and Performance Management

IBM Cognos business intelligence (BI) and performance management solutions deliver world-leading enterprise planning, consolidation and BI software, support and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance. IBM Cognos solutions bring together technology, analytical applications, best practices, and a broad network of partners to give customers an open, adaptive and complete performance solution. Over 23,000 customers in more than 135 countries around the world choose IBM Cognos solutions.