Forecasting and consolidation consultancy Inca Software has implemented an IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (BI) for UK designer and manufacturer of children’s products, Oasis Arts and Crafts.

Part of the Reeves Art Group, Oasis will be using the IBM Cognos 8 BI to make sense of the huge amount of data stored in the firm’s ERP system. This includes details about customers, products, sales and profits.

Ged Simmons, country manager at IBM Cognos performance management and business intelligence UK and Ireland, said: “Sales and marketing teams have a limited amount of resource and time.

“Making the right decision about how to invest it can make the difference between hitting profit targets or not. Oasis has the vision to use a robust and proven platform to help it make the right decisions to drive growth.”

The firm was having difficulties accessing and analysing huge volumes of unstructured information, but with IBM Cognos software the sales and marketing team are now able to view a single version of all reports through visual graphs and charts. This allows them to drill down into high-level reports and paint a better picture of the company’s financial figures and product decisions.

Lewis Pepall, financial controller at Oasis, said: “Achieving our performance targets relies on making the best decisions for the future. This in turn relies on having up-to-date and accurate information.

“IBM Cognos 8 BI ensures that our sales and marketing teams have the information they need to do their job as well as possible. Pulling together business critical data on sales and company profits now takes ten minutes instead of half a day.”

IBM Cognos 8 BI was rolled out within a deadline of two months.