NGS Launches Pre-Built Data Mart for Distributors

Published: October 23, 2007

by Alex Woodie

Companies in the distribution industry running i5/OS ERP applications are the target audience of a new out-of-the-box business intelligence product launched by New Generation Software this month. The new offering, called Decision Assist--Business Performance, comes with all the i5/OS-based software a company needs to begin analyzing the performance of several aspects of its business, including sales, profitability, supplier and customer relationships, and inventory levels.

Decision Assist is a prepackaged collection of BI components from NGS that includes the flagship i5/OS-based NGS-IQ server, a pre-built data mart, Windows-based development tools, browser-based dashboards, and a series of preconfigured reports designed for customers in specific industries, which are delivered as Flash presentations that play in Web browsers.

New Generation Software delivered the first Decision Assist solution more than three years ago as a bundle of reports tailored toward manufacturers and distributors that use VAI's S2K suite of ERP applications for the System i. NGS followed that with another Decision Assist package designed specifically for users of Siemens MedSeries4 collection of ERP products for hospitals and others in the healthcare field.

With Decision Assist--Business Performance, the Sacramento, California, company is delivering a version of Decision Assist that will work with any distribution-focused ERP package for the System i.

"We know companies want greater visibility into their customer, sales, and inventory performance, but often find the process required to provide the data to management is labor intensive and therefore, too slow to be used proactively, " says Bernard Gough, CEO and president of NGS. "With Decision Assist--Business Performance, they can quickly achieve their goals."

Decision Assist--Business Performance ships with more than 60 pre-built reports that give distributors a top-down view of their business, including: annual sales by division; sales vs. orders; manufacturer item sales vs. inventory dollars; the best and worse selling items by invoice amount and by profit margin; items not sold; sales and profit margin by salesperson; salesperson performance by division; inventory turns; overstocked items; out of stock items; the best and worst customers by invoice amount and profit margin; and items not sold by vendor, among many others. These reports can be generated in Windows formats such as Excel or Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets, Access tables, Word documents, HTML, XML, or PDF documents. Reports can be distributed via e-mail and FTP, NGS says.

Decision Assist--Business Performance is available now. The software requires OS/400 V5R1 or higher. For more information, visit www.ngsi.com.

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