About PALI Group
PALI Group is a Dutch family business founded in 1959 by Tiny Paridaans & Bert Liebregts. Since then the company became one of the largest organisations in the field of cattle trade and meat production in Europe. With its own livestock farms, a pig and calf slaughterhouse, a tannery and an operation for cattle transport, PALI Group is a committed partner and advisor for the entire meat production chain. PALI Group also owns the web shop smaakvolvlees.nl to support farmers in drawing attention to veal, the tastiest meat there is.
The PALI Group is headquartered in Den Bosch, the Netherlands. In addition, there are branches in Oss, Geldrop and Lichtenvoorde. Alex van Vreede, Division Manager ICT, is responsible for all IT related aspects and has been working at PALI Group for five years now. Jesse van Vreede, Alex's son, has been working as a Junior Datawarehouse developer at the PALI Group for over a year. Together with their team, Alex and Jesse ensure that the organisation functions as optimally as possible by means of structured data collection and processing. In 2016, the cooperation with 2Foqus started with the deployment of the data management solutions TimeXtender and Qlik Sense.
"The consultants at 2FOQUS always work with well thought-out plans. They first prepare schematic models and then build them. This provides better quality dashboards. We appreciate this accurate way of working."
Alex van Vreede, Division manager ICT
FACTS & FIGURES
Employees, industry : Over 700 employees, food manufacturing
Activities: International meat producer, livestock trade, transport
Users : Over 30 users daily
Deployed solutions: TimeXtender and Qlik Sense
The challenges
Different applications and fragmented data resulted in a lack of insights and structure within PALI Group. When Alex started, he immediately saw the need to do something about it. "Through my work experience as system developer and manager in this sector, I knew that it was necessary to build a data warehouse. The company did deploy the solutions from Qlik, but the reports from Qlik were based on input from Excel. There was no central place to link, merge or compare data. Through our network we came into contact with 2Foqus for this."
Data is key
PALI Group is made up of various departments such as Production, Logistics, Transport and Finance. Each department produces huge amounts of data relevant for taking decisions and accelerating processes. In addition, as a livestock trader and meat producer, the company has to deal with various laws and regulations, which makes that factual insights and real-time data are essential. Jesse explains: "Everything we do in our organisations needs to be traceable. For example, every calf has an ear number. This enables us to see, among other things, where the calf was raised and who the mother is. But also where the calf has been within our organisation and to which customer it eventually went.
Alex adds: "The reason that a data warehouse is so important has, for example, to do with unexpected audits, where we have to provide the requested information within four hours. By using a data warehouse, this is done much more efficiently and quickly.”
"Where we used to extract our results from separate files, we now immediately have factual insights and we can track, trace and check information."
Jesse van Vreede, Datawarehouse Developer
Factual insights and streamlined processes.
2Foqus deployed TimeXtender and Qlik Sense at PALI Group. Alex indicates that this has given the organisation much more insights: "Our processes now run faster and more efficient because of the knowledge we obtain from data . We are now able to respond directly to any situation that might occur.
As a result, our insights are much more reliable. For example, we can now trace an invoice with a single click. In the past these invoices were processed in separate Excel files, making retrieval very labour-intensive and error-prone." Jesse adds to this: "TimeXtender collects the data from all our systems and links them in a smart way. With Qlik Sense we then make this data visible for our colleagues through insightful reports.”
Advantages for PALI Group
PALI Group's future challenges
Alex and Jesse are already working on a new challenge. Alex explains: "At the moment we are at a level that we can support the operational processes well. However, we want to take it one step further by using predictive analysis. We want to look more into the future, using data to make predictions and to manage targets. Currently we cannot provide our (divisional) managers with enough information about trends and developments, but we want to get there. This means, amongst others, that we will link even more data to create more intelligent dashboards.
The ultimate goal is that the organisation is not working on the current or the next step, but able to think and act ten steps further ahead. Jesse gives an example: "A branch manager makes a lot of decisions in one day. Currently, this is mostly done on a gut feeling and nothing is measured. As a result, we never know whether the right choices were made. If we can measure results and compare them with predictions, a branch manager can make decisions based on future results. This way, our data will encourage forward thinking.”
Why 2FOQUS?
Professional, service-oriented and closely involved
"Our partnership with 2Foqus is very valuable to us," says Jesse. "The consultants have a lot of knowledge and the company offers great solutions. The relationship with my contact is very close, and very instructive. I always get tips & tricks to make things better. In addition, the people from 2Foqus are great colleagues to work with. Alex nods in agreement and adds to Jesse: "I think that there is a good cultural fit between our organisations. When the cooperation with 2Foqus started, a lot had to be optimised. Everything was prepared in well thought-out plans, which led to better quality dashboards. In addition to the precise and great execution of the plans, the consultants from 2Foqus also respond to ad hoc requests. This works very well for us, as we can react quickly to the unforeseen. I hope to work with 2Foqus for a long time to come!”
"The reason that a Data Warehouse is so important has, for example, to do with unexpected audits, whereby we have to provide the requested information within four hours. Thanks to our Data Warehouse, we can respond much more quickly and efficiently."
Alex van Vreede, Division manager ICT