Behind any sound decision, there should be data, information, analysis and method. There should also be a great deal of creativity, for it is this creativity that makes the difference - not only in the world of art, but in the world of management too.
Creativity is what sets BOARD International’s BOARD (Management Intelligence Toolkit) apart from all other Business Intelligence tools. The difference with BOARD is that it gives decision-makers the opportunity to deploy all their resources of creativity in a simple, direct, immediate manner. BOARD - easy to use and capable of addressing and solving the toughest of problems.

“It’s a hard world! Fleeting moments of happiness, and… an uncertain future”

Access to the right information, made available simply and at the right moment, is crucial to the success of any effective corporate or business decision. Today’s typical company is an absolute Pandora’s box full of data, often disaggregated, incomplete, stored on non-homogeneous systems and practically impossible to utilize in an efficient manner. This data must be turned into information. The need has been arising more and more strongly in recent years for an efficient tool capable of accessing and analysing information, a tool that will assist decision-makers at every level and in every department of the modern company.

This was the situation with Riso Scotti SpA, a market leader in the food industry and a company on the lookout for a flexible, integrated tool. A tool which would be relatively simple to implement and utilize, would support sales policies, monitor production costs and help in defining budgeting activity.

There is more of implementing an efficient Management Intelligence function in a company than simply possessing a suitable tool. It takes teamwork, involving company staff and technicians who are familiar with the company database (the information system used by Riso Scotti SpA runs on AS/400), and it needs BOARD.

A team made up of systems experts from Blue Age, coordinated by Piero Carbonera and by Ms. Clara Zanacco, representing Riso Scotti Spa, successfully implemented BOARD with minimal impact on the everyday work environment while satisfying all the requirements of the company’s management functions.

The selection of BOARD was based on the product’s simplicity of use, rapid application development, and its ability to acquire, update and deliver information without the need for operators to learn rigid or impenetrable programming languages.

The BOARD project was implemented pursuing two main objectives: First, to provide top management with a broad picture of the company’s progress day-by-day, through the creation of an ad hoc reporting function that can be used easily and immediately. This would allow users to analyse sales data and compare them with budget data, and ultimately to build a genuine profit and loss account by customer, by product line, by agent and by area.

The second objective was to create a vehicle for the efficient distribution of information at all levels of the company, and thus provide a working tool to support the decision-making process. BOARD’s ease of use prevents the fragmentation of reporting, allowing users to access all the information they need directly, and best of all, independently.

BOARD has also become a dependable aid for managers needing to find answers to such questions as, “What happened on this day at this time, and why?” Better still, managers can look into the future and, with the help of BOARD’s simulation capabilities, verify the impact of their decisions today on the future business.

The next project will be to supply agents operating across the region with a set of reports which can both support their activities and help control the impact of their sales policies. This will be done using BOARD’s WebServer version, which allows easy distribution of information to the outside world, and - thanks to the Internet - renders data accessible to users who may not necessarily be based in the office.

The tangible results of this success are, for Riso Scotti SpA, the advantage of having an easy-to-use, highly efficient and cutting-edge business tool; and for Blue Age Sistema, the availability of a customizable, proven product which is up to the challenges presented by a continuously evolving environment such as food manufacturing.