Amedia future-proofs the company's BI solution with an upgrade to Qlik Sense

 

At the Norwegian media company Amedia, the company's BI solution is an important daily tool for approximately 400 employees spread across the company's 64 newspapers throughout Norway. For several years, the company has been using a QlikView solution from Capana but had started to experience that the technology no longer optimally met all of the company's needs.

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Gustaf Eriksson, Head of Business Intelligence at Amedia, explains:

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"We are very pleased with the Qlik technology itself, but we had reached a point where the QlikView product alone was no longer the optimal solution for us. Firstly, the QlikView interface has a somewhat outdated look and feel, and secondly, QlikView is not platform-independent, meaning it is not responsive, so employees could not access our BI solution from an iPad, smartphone, or other computers."

 

Therefore, Gustaf Eriksson contacted Capana with a request to initiate an upgrade of Amedia's BI solution to Qlik's newer product, Qlik Sense.

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"In addition to the newer interface and responsive design, Qlik Sense also has functionalities and qualities that provide our management and employees with even better information to work with. The core of Qlik Sense is that the technology helps distribute information outward, not just as numbers but with the possibility for each user to delve into the underlying data through an intuitive yet advanced data exploration. Furthermore, Capana's extensions and mashup make it a more complete platform that covers more of our needs," explains Gustaf Eriksson, adding:

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"This means that our sales representatives, for example, get a customized sheet and can see where they stand relative to the budget. But they can also dig deeper and see which customers perform well, how many meetings result in a sale, and so on. Moreover, it is so user-friendly that even individuals without extensive IT skills can use it."

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Gradual migration ensures an optimal process

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Moving a BI solution that covers 400 monthly users, 64 newspapers, and all departments of the company from advertising sales to sales, analysts, finance, and top management is inherently a complex task to transition from one technology to another. That is precisely why Amedia has chosen to carry out the migration gradually.

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"One of the first things we have moved to Qlik Sense is our KPI reporting. Qlik Sense allows us to create attractive and clear dashboards and reports. Since we have 64 newspapers reporting to a regional director, who in turn reports to our central management, it is important that we can communicate information quickly and clearly. With Qlik Sense, we can transfer a dashboard to Google Slides via Qlik NPrinting, enabling the management to quickly gain an overview of both the overall picture and the performance of each individual newspaper. This provides a solid foundation for their decisions," explains Gustaf Eriksson.

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In addition to KPI reporting, advertising, online sales dashboards, and inventory analysis have also been migrated to Qlik Sense at this point.

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"In such an upgrade process, it's about starting with the elements that provide the highest value in relation to the number of employees it assists. Currently, in addition to KPI reporting, we have also migrated areas such as our advertising space—how much money do we get from the generated traffic?—our online sales—which articles contribute to subscription sales, segmented by factors such as customers' geography, age, etc.—and our inventory analysis, that is, how well do we retain our customers?"

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In addition to migrating existing functionalities from QlikView to Qlik Sense, the ongoing collaboration with Capana has also contributed new features based on insights into Amedia's needs.