Business Intelligence in China
QPSoftware, a digital agency founded in 2009 and based in Shanghai, delivers business intelligence in China for companies that need clear data to decide: dashboards, KPI reports and productivity tools fed by your CRM, your ERP and your operations. For Schneider Electric, we built ZEST, a productivity management tool that tracks the productivity of more than 150 employees on 4 production lines.
What business intelligence tools do for your company
Business intelligence (BI) tools are what you need to understand your business and take it to the next level. Nothing is more valuable for a company than collecting data, analyzing it and using it for strategic planning. Whether your purpose is a detailed business analysis or a productivity management tool that improves your overall performance, QPSoftware is here to help you create the right tools for what you want.
Benefits of business intelligence tools
- Accelerated and improved decision making
- Optimizing internal business processes
- Improved operational efficiency
- Driving new revenues
- Obtaining competitive advantages over competitors
- Identifying market trends
- Identifying business problems that need to be corrected
We can help you grow your business by collecting and analyzing strategic data that improves the productivity of your teams, creates a more cost-effective supply chain and identifies the key elements of your business that you can leverage to your advantage.
How does business intelligence help a business?
BI tools provide critical information by collecting historical data about your company and its performance. The collected data is extremely useful to analyze what your company has accomplished, how efficient your production process is and what may need to be improved.
Through reports, charts, graphs and other analytical tools, you gain precious insights into how well your company is operating. Based on these figures, you can understand trends and make better strategic business decisions. A good use of BI tools will create a better profit margin for your company and give you an advantage over your competitors.
Unlike many BI platforms, QPSoftware develops a customized solution, designed and optimized to collect truly relevant data that is specific to your needs. Our BI solutions can be implemented for both new and existing businesses.
Your CRM is often the first data source. For LVMH Watches & Jewelry, the MYKE CRM we built generates KPI reports that measure retail store performance. If you do not have a CRM yet, we can build a CRM that fits China, and our guide on how to choose the right CRM to operate in China compares the options. Website data counts too: see our step-by-step Baidu Analytics (Tongji) guide.
Productivity management tools for logistics and manufacturing
Our productivity management tools help logistics and manufacturing companies improve the productivity of their teams and the management of their warehouse or supply chain. Good organization and an optimized production process are the first steps in reducing operating costs and maximizing profits. With our customized productivity management tools, you get a clear picture of the effectiveness of your industrial processes.
The data collected by our productivity management tools gives you a clear indication of how to better coordinate your workforce, improve your warehouse management, keep your supply chain running smoothly and improve the overall productivity of your team. As a result, your company cuts costs, improves productivity and is in a better position to offer the best customer service experience.
ZEST shows it in practice. Schneider Electric’s distribution centers managed labor in a manual and inconsistent way, with several spreadsheets and no standardized tool. ZEST automates the imports from SAP, collects and analyzes SAP data in real time, manages users with role-based permissions, and calculates employee productivity and efficiency daily and monthly, at all levels.
Tableau or Power BI: the technologies we use
To develop these customized tools for your business, QPSoftware uses two main technologies:
- Tableau. A mature technology that has existed for more than ten years. It makes interactive data visualization a central part of understanding your information: data coming from different sources is transformed into dashboards that bring your diverse information together quickly and easily. Tableau offers comprehensive customer support and lets users leverage any number of data points to conduct an analysis.
- Microsoft Power BI. A more recent technology that offers the same service as Tableau, with different features. Power BI is heavily integrated with Microsoft’s portfolio, including the Azure cloud platform, and in general it is the more affordable option.
In China, Power BI is offered as a separate service, Power BI operated by 21Vianet, run by a local operator to comply with Chinese regulatory requirements, and some features of the global service are not available there. We check these differences before choosing where your dashboards run. Where the data lives matters too: China’s Personal Information Protection Law does not apply to anonymized information (Article 4), but personal information sent abroad must meet its transfer conditions (Article 38).
For Mageba, we embedded Power BI dashboards in the web and mobile apps of the ROBO®QUAKE monitoring tool, to show live data on how building structures behave before, during and after earthquakes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most affordable business intelligence option for a company in China?
The most affordable option is the one scoped to the decisions you need to make. Start with a few KPIs and the data sources that feed them, then extend. Packaged tools such as Tableau or Power BI are licensed and quick to set up, while a custom dashboard needs development but follows your exact process. We compare both for your case before you commit.
Can we use Power BI in China?
Yes. In China, Power BI is offered as a separate service operated by the local company 21Vianet, designed to comply with Chinese regulatory requirements. Some features of the global service are missing or limited there, so we check your needs against that list before building. Where your data sources and users are located also decides where the dashboards should run.
Which data sources can a business intelligence dashboard use?
Almost any system whose data you can export or reach through an API: your CRM, your ERP such as SAP, your e-commerce store, your website analytics such as Baidu Tongji, or sensors and equipment. ZEST, the tool we built for Schneider Electric, imports SAP data automatically, and the Mageba apps show live monitoring data in Power BI dashboards.
Where should business intelligence data about China be stored?
It depends on the data. China's Personal Information Protection Law does not apply to anonymized information, so dashboards built on anonymized data are simpler to host. Personal information sent abroad must meet the law's conditions, such as a security assessment, a certification or a standard contract, unless an exemption applies. We design data flows and hosting with these rules in mind, alongside your legal advisers.
WHY QPSOFTWARE?
QPSoftware is a team of experts that will listen to your needs and understand them, then search for and create the best solutions for your business. We do not offer standardized solutions to our clients. Rather, we create customized solutions that perfectly suit your demands and achieve the results you want.
Founded in 2009, QPSoftware designs and develops professional business intelligence tools and CRMs, such as ZEST for Schneider Electric and MYKE for LVMH Watches & Jewelry, for small and large corporations. With our international environment, we address the needs of customers from anywhere on the globe, and our CRM and business intelligence solutions cover the whole chain, from customer data to dashboards.
