FLIPKART improves inventory utilization & transforms culture with QLIKVIEW.

1. FLIPKART IMPROVES INVENTORY Solution overview
UTILIZATION WITH QLIKVIEW Flipkart
Flipkart—founded in 2007 in
Bangalore, India—is the
“QlikView is a superb tool for managing inventory by allowing you to largest B2B e-commerce
optimize stock levels and lower costs associated with excess stock. By platform in the country.
using QlikView in our day-to-day operations, we’ve improved inventory Having started with books, it
utilization by 5 percent.” has now diversified into a
wide range of products.
– Pravin Shinde, Analytics Manager, Flipkart
Industry: Consumer
Products
Function: Finance, IT,
Marketing, Operations, Sales,
QlikView impresses Flipkart as Supply Chain
replacement for open source BI
Geography: India
In August 2011, the company
invested in its first licensed Challenges:
business discovery software with  Integrate complex data from
QlikView Enterprise Edition, which disparate sources
has since been upgraded to
QlikView 11. By then, Flipkart was  Deliver analytical data to
experiencing an increasingly staff in various departments
complex data flow from different
business units—for example,  Improve inventory utilization
inventory and supply chain. Solution:
Flipkart, the largest B2B e-commerce
business in India, went live in 2007 Shinde says: “We needed a smart Flipkart has deployed
with the objective of making books system to collate and display QlikView 11 to 200 users,
easily available to anyone with meaningful and actionable analysis
internet access. Founded by together with 35 named
for decision makers across different users, and implemented
entrepreneurs Sachin Bansal and business units and locations. Prior
Binny Bansal, Flipkart has diversified several applications analyzing
to this, we’d very much been an 25 million rows of data.
from book sales into other products. open source house. But with
It sells entertainment products—from exponential expansion in the Benefits:
movies, music to consumer business and a growing number of
electronics—as well as healthcare knowledge workers and managers  Provided transparent and
and personal products, home requiring BI analysis and reports, up-to-date information for
appliances, and clothing. we needed flexibility and speed in analysis
our analytics system.”
Flipkart experiences massive  Embedded data-driven
growth quarter on quarter Flipkart was impressed by the rapid decision making at Flipkart
The rapid diversification has also time to business value achieved  Improved inventory
brought rapid growth. This is with QlikView. Shinde says: “The utilization
illustrated by the company’s first application for sales took just
expanding network of warehouses six weeks to implement and each  Delivered first application for
and procurement operations. subsequent functional area— sales in just six weeks
supply chain, inventory and
finance—took a similar effort. Data source systems
This kind of scale has added to the
need for Flipkart to continually Speed of delivery made all the Applications: Open Source
upgrade its business discovery difference to our business, with ERP software
software to better serve multiple analysis available instantly at the Database: Microsoft Excel,
business units with new applications. fingertips of our knowledge workers MySQL
on a self-service basis.”
As a startup, Flipkart initially used
open source technology to support Another high-performing
the launch, but soon found that open application in QlikView is for
source business intelligence (BI) inventory management. Sales
tools had limited functionality. Shinde people and managers access data
says: “Scalability was a problem. It and find information quickly without
was hard to drill down into our data any IT support.
to produce complex reports.”
Shinde says: “Previously, we were

2. using ad hoc processes and The teams have responded well to
RETURN ON reporting. QlikView is a superb tool QlikView due to its intuitive nature
INVESTMENT for managing inventory by allowing and user-friendly dashboards.
you to optimize stock levels and Users can explore information
Inventory utilization lower costs associated with excess freely rather than follow predefined
stock. By using QlikView in our paths of questions.
improvement day-to-day operations, we’ve
improved inventory utilization by 5 The QlikView business discovery
percent.” platform’s application-driven model
works with existing data sources,
Using its 12-strong in-house IT which for Flipkart includes the open
team, Flipkart has deployed source MySQL data management
TIME TO VALUE QlikView 11 to 200 users, together system and Microsoft Excel
with 35 named users, without spreadsheet software.
First application for requiring help from external
consultants. The QlikView According to Shinde, the company
sales takes just six applications analyze around 25 plans to extend QlikView use to
weeks million rows of data, which is employee tablets and
increasing in line with the smartphones—which is now
company’s growth. possible with QlikView 11—and
provide a dashboard for senior
With direct access to company management to gain an overview
data, staff can spend more time on of company performance.
analysis rather than data collation,
and work with one version of the
truth.
Flipkart transforms its business
culture
In an industry where fast access to
information is important, QlikView
has also transformed the way
Flipkart does business. It’s helping
to make the company more agile
and responsive to its customers.
“With QlikView, we are trying to
establish data-driven decision
making as a culture within our
organization,” says Shinde. “We’re
changing the way we see
ourselves. All the relevant teams
have been empowered and no
longer depend on anyone else for
reports and analysis. We’ve
developed the capacity to share
knowledge holistically across
teams, which means we can better
evaluate our sales strategy.”
“With QlikView, we are trying to establish data-driven decision making as a
culture within our organization. All the relevant teams have been empowered
and no longer depend on anyone else for reports and analysis.”
– Pravin Shinde, Analytics Manager, Flipkart
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