Paper Plus Case Study

Paper Plus Group gains insight into their business with Qlik®

As New Zealand’s largest retailer of books, stationery, magazines and cards, with 115 stores nationwide, for Paper Plus Group Ltd, it is imperative that their support office has access to up-to-date and accurate information on what is happening in stores to enable efficient delivery of products customers want, ensure promotions are meeting customer demands and overall profitability of the retail chain in today’s challenging retail environment.

The implementation of Qlik has empowered Paper Plus Group for continued success. With increasing competition, retailers need to continuously differentiate to encourage their customer base to choose them over others. Making those decisions on which products, promos and loyalty programs will work is all driven by information. Information which prior to implementing Qlik, was time consuming, inflexible, unreliable and difficult to access.

The previous manual reporting relied heavily on Excel and manpower to extract data from SQL and create daily reports, which were frequently inaccurate. Now the business has flexible analysis, enabling monitoring of promos, better management of stock sell through and overall improvement in the category managers abilities to make effective decisions on what is working in store.

Daily sales reports are now automatically generated and shared with key users and managers. Exception reports and analysis has meant store owners can be more responsive and proactive about finding ways to reduce loss and increase sales and margins.

Qlik has equipped category owners to make better decisions with information at their finger tips to enable negotiations with suppliers based on actual true data. One version of the truth means everyone is on the same page and there are no mixed messages from the data affecting the direction of the business. Category managers can focus on their core tasks instead of spending time just trying to access information.

Implementing Qlik has been a “transformative” experience, according to CEO Sam Shosanya and has become ingrained into everything they do daily. They now have “total insight” to their business and confidence in their data. When asked to compare the way the business operates with Qlik versus prior, Paper Plus Group advise it is like “day vs night”. The team no longer have to make decisions based on ‘gut-feel’ but on proven analysis.

Visual Intelligence’s expertise in both Qlik solutions and understanding their business has given Paper Plus Group confidence in the recommendations and ongoing expansion of delivering further functionality to the business. According to their Project Manager, Visual Intelligence is more than just a support company, they are truly a part of the Paper Plus team, providing extremely responsive service, honest feedback and valued recommendations.

As they continue to mature in their Qlik usage, Paper Plus are now even able to provide relevant data to their key suppliers, and are also rolling dynamic dashboards and analytics out to Stores. The ease of use of the tool combined with the value of the information has meant it is a fantastic solution for helping Store owners become more efficient and increase profits.

The successful roll out of Qlik and ongoing business efficiencies gained as a result is a testament to the quality of the relationship between the Paper Plus group and Visual Intelligence.