Michele King at Antistat ESD

What, specifically, does the system give you?

“We have offices in the UK, plus subsidiaries in the US and Germany, across a number of different brands and products, so having regular, up-to-date information on sales and costs allows us to see exactly where the business is at any point in point in time, and make informed decisions promptly and with confidence.

“It allows us to spot trends by showing us clear like-for-like comparative information; we can produce group reports, individual entity reports, or individual cost centre reports which is a great thing for us.

“It enables us to monitor the tempo of the business on a daily basis, with data on sales, value, margins and location – we have all this at our fingertips, with updates available in just a few minutes, and that means we can respond quickly to any situation.

“And we can use this information to decide, for example, on pricing structures, check our liabilities and see fluctuations in FX [foreign exchange] rates. So having that multiple data set information in multiple currencies is invaluable.

And what impact has that had on the business?

“It’s certainly made us more efficient insofar as we have been able to replace a person with a process, and it is accurate and consistent. We rely on the consistency, in order to compare apples with apples and pears with pears.

“And yes, it’s more immediate. But we still need a human brain to interpret the analytics and determine how to respond to the information and apply it in ways that are most advantageous to the business.”

Finally, then, what advice would you offer to any business considering introducing business intelligence software through Minerva?

“I think you need to be very clear about what information you want, and what you’ll do with it. But Minerva has built up a vast knowledge base around Exchequer and panintelligence, and we’ve been very well supported by Gary and the rest of the Minerva team.

“They’ve been a really good partner in the process and have always worked with us to resolve any issues and help us to get the most from it.”