BMW tunes dealer performance data

Computing reports from the annual Cognos UK user conference in London

BMW UK is set to go live with a web-based reporting tool that will provide its network of dealerships with a clearer view of their performance.

The dealer portal is the latest in a series of projects at BMW based on business intelligence software, which is central to the car manufacturer’s efforts to provide more accurate reports and analysis on the performance of the UK business.

Chris Edge, BMW UK enterprise business intelligence architect, says the software has become increasingly important for managing the company, allowing users to control meaningful information.

‘When we started using business intelligence software during the mid-1990s, the aim was to use transactional data in the mainframe to provide users with the ability to unlock the value of that data,’ he said.

The UK subsidiary started using software and tools from supplier Cognos at the same time that parent company BMW AG standardised on the technology.

‘In the UK we built on a foundation of dimensional data, where corporate data such as vehicle types was standardised, and common data that was not specific to our business, such as postcodes, was delivered as a corporate layer in the data warehouse,’ said Edge.

Despite the company’s evolving use of business intelligence, this is the first project to bring together key metrics based on data from all areas of the business and from other applications and its mainframe.

The portal used to present the data can also track performance changes historically, instead of presenting a static view.

‘The Dealer Key Performance Indicator portal that is going through its pilot phase presents

a co-ordinated view of the dealer’s business, as opposed to them having to go to the various regional managers for that information,’ said Edge.

‘When we first started using business intelligence we never thought it would be used to build insular systems.

‘But now we can deliver more content to the dealers and the business internally, so it is easy for the consumer to drill through the data and see what they want,’ he said.