Qlik, a leader in data discovery, today announced that National Express Coach is using the QlikView Business Discovery platform to gain better insight into customer feedback and improve fleet performance.
National Express Coach is the UK’s largest coach operator, delivering 18 million journeys on its services every year, priding itself on its high level of customer service. National Express previously relied on spreadsheets for data analysis. However, this practice was complicated and made it difficult for multiple departments to look into their figures and extract value from their data. Additionally, they needed a platform capable of managing more than 100 million records that could draw together data from all relevant sources to provide a holistic view of operations.
To meet their evolving needs, National Express implemented the QlikView Business Discovery platform as part of an initiative to completely reinvigorate their BI practices over the next six months. The software has been deployed across almost all departments at National Express. For example, the Commercial team uses it to cut through the numbers behind each route, keeping an eye on the most profitable routes and every other aspect of running the business financially. Meanwhile, the Customer Services and Service Delivery teams use it to analyse customer feedback and develop a picture of how the company is perceived, along with crucial areas for improvement.
“We selected the QlikView Business Discovery via Qlik elite partner, Data Technology, as the software is an intuitive, accessible system for our team to use, despite the complexity of the task,” said Frank Kozurek, Business Intelligence Manager at National Express. “None of the Business Intelligence team had used QlikView before, yet they were immediately comfortable with the system thanks to its intuitive, self-service approach. It affords us the flexibility to explore the data in the ways we need to, and allows us to cut through the data to look at statistics for every individual journey, something that wasn’t possible when we relied on basic spreadsheets alone. I’ve worked with various BI platforms for ten years, and QlikView is the only one to have exceeded my expectations.”
QlikView helps make company data accessible to all staff involved in the BI program, rather than just the IT department. This allows individuals from across National Express’ business units — from HR to Executive, Sales and Customer Service apps – to report an accurate, company-wide picture to the board when called upon. The company’s ability to access market data has been estimated to deliver a six-figure revenue benefit as the company can set its prices to ensure they are the most attractive to customers. To extend the program social media analysis will be integrated over the coming months.
“It’s been a novelty to find analytics software that can actually be used by everyone across the business – rather than just specialists in data,” adds Helen Blaikie, Head of Business Planning, National Express. “QlikView has proven so easy to get on board with that everyone will soon have the capacity to dive into the data and gain insights to help drive the business.”
“Seeing QlikView being used by National Express employees in such an innovative manner demonstrates just how adaptable our technology can be,” said Sean Farrington, Qlik UK & Ireland MD and RVP Northern Europe. “National Express has worked hard to establish itself as the market leader in a highly competitive environment and it’s great to be involved in providing the technology to help it to progress.”
(Image Credit: Tom Godber)
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