Lac Viet a leading business intelligence provider

Ha Than, general director of Lac Viet Computing Corp.

The company has become among the first user of Microsoft’s Business Intelligence in Vietnam.

The company’s revenues have kept increasing after posting a five-fold growth and profits more than tripling during 2003-2008.

The company was also one of the first Vietnamese companies to enter the fast growing cloud computing segment. With more than 400 staff in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Danang City, a fourth of the staff are directly involved in the Business Intelligence (BI) and 30 staff use this solution on a daily basis. The benefits and experiences from deploying these BI help Lac Viet Computing Company grasp profound experiences and know-how to deploy BI effectively.  

SITUATION

Before deploying the Microsoft’s Business Intelligence, Lac Viet Computing Company used its own developed enterprise resource management software. The BI solution is a small-sized module integrated in the software for 100 users in the company.

This software was designated to support hierarchical roles to have a comprehensive view on business operations as well as deals to make fast decisions. However, the system was fragmented and cannot generate reports at the real-time based on available database to quickly provide a view or analysis on business operations to users. Therefore, the system hinders hierarchical roles to make right decisions at the right time.

Microsoft’s BI platform is the right solution for the company to make quick and correct decisions. The solution has comprehensive built-in functionalities, easy for developing and future deployment. This is also easy for third-party developers as well as users to run their solution on. 

SOLUTION

The Microsoft platform deployed by Lac Viet Computer Company includes Microsoft SQL Server 2008R2 (Using Integration Services, Analysis Services, Reporting Services – with Report Builder 3.0), Microsoft SharePoint Portal Ent (PerformancePoint Services, EXCEL Services, InfoPath Services).

BI system integrated with the platform includes Windows Server 2008 R2, The Operating System Windows 7, Office 2010 and Microsoft CRM. It took four months for Lac Viet Computing Company to complete deployment. Of which, building up database was the most complicated and toughest part for deployment as it took time for building and collecting data for posting on the database.

The most difficult task in data collection was triggered from different formats of data for integrating into standardised databases. Data was collected fragmentally from various sources and under different formats and this task seems to be a great challenge to one that does not run software for standardising data such as accounting and Enterprises Resource Processing or ERP. This challenge may turn to be a failure of BI deployment.

“There are a lot of work to bridge demand and capability of solution due to uncompleted platform of common standard data for posting in database,” said Nguyen Dac Thao, Lac Viet’s deputy general director of Information Technology.

In general, it takes one to three months to discover data streams and structures as well as data standardisation to build up a database for a normal-sized firm as customers may run set of various software. For building up a database collecting data from the whole organisation for a larger-size firm may take years from customers. The platform is easy for usage and adoptions by users provide multi-dimensional reports on periodical basis and customised reports based on the user’s requirements. The Microsoft’s BI solution also supports company’s high-ranking officers to have a view of their management through reports.

BENEFITS

•    Benefits from operation cost reduction
Microsoft BI solution allows users configure their customerisation for usage, operations and maintenance those are standardised and do not require much works from IT professionals during deployment. The solution helps Lac Viet Computing Company save 20 per cent of operation cost in comparison with previous solutions.

•    Benefits in fast decision-making
Microsoft’s BI solution allows Lac Viet Computing Company leaders to access reports on period basis in real-time and transparence, standardising data and report formats in real-time. Through reports, company leaders are provided with views on all information and have all answers from database. The solution also supports company leaders to receive warnings from abnormal operations in any time to make right decisions. Leaders also received supports from the solution to draft plan, do business forecasts as well as adjust business strategies upon the new movements in the market. Development of Microsoft’s BI solution is an easy task once its platform allows users to access trusted and a full range of tools for development and deployment.

•    Benefits in personnel cost reduction
Comprehensive and accurately reporting tools of Microsoft’s BI allows company leaders and staff to access reports in real time and help the company reduce personnel costs dedicated for reporting and improving its competitiveness in the market. The solution helps Lac Viet save costs for two staff who are designated to generate reports with charts for functional departments and company leaders.

•    Benefits in the business management:
Multi-dimensional reports with accuracy at high-level also help personnel and business managers to understand the status quos in a company.