The NEC Group: Optimizing the Visitor Experience with Analytics and Business Intelligence Solutions from SAP

Transcription

1 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. The NEC Group: Optimizing the Visitor Experience with Analytics and Business Intelligence Solutions from SAP The NEC Group, one of the world s top venue management companies, wanted to make the data it presents to its visitor management staff instantly understandable. Using SAP BusinessObjects business intelligence solutions, the NEC built a dashboard that delivers near-real-time data at a glance. Team NEC staff is now making faster, better decisions that are smoothing traffic flow and improving the visitor experience.

2 Company The NEC Group Headquarters Birmingham, UK Industry Sports and entertainment venue management Products and Services Event hosting Employees 2,000 Revenue 140 million ( 186 million) Web Site Partner Computer Systems Integration Limited (CSI) BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION Objectives Optimize the visitor experience Simplify decision making for operations Provide clients with better information for planning future events Deployed the latest version of SAP BusinessObjects business intelligence (BI) solutions Developed dashboards to instantly convey key information to operations Engaged Computer Systems Integration Limited (CSI) for design, implementation, and ongoing support Benefits Presented a complete, near-real-time view of the National Exhibition Centre at a glance Minimized parking, walking, and registration time for visitors Demonstrated visitor-friendly capabilities to clients, helping future sales Read more As an operations guy who has very little knowledge of IT, I have no idea what SAP is all about. All I know is that SAP has made life simple for us. Gary Masters, Security and Traffic Operations Manager, The NEC Group Up to 60K Visitors per day at the National Exhibition Centre 3 Disparate systems feeding data to the dashboard 3 months To implement 2 / 6

3 Managing traffic and visitor flow at Europe s busiest venue The NEC Group is one of the world s top venue management companies. One of the four UK venues it manages, the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, is the United Kingdom s largest exhibition center and one of Europe s busiest. Up to 60,000 people per day attend its events. The competition is intense in venue management. One of the chief differentiators that clients consider when making their choices is the quality of the visitor experience a venue provides. People want to easily find parking close to the event they came to see, for example, and they want short lines at registration counters. To collect the data needed to address these customer satisfaction issues, the NEC uses three separate systems at the National Exhibition Centre. One of them counts vehicles entering the site from arterial roads, a second counts cars entering and leaving each of the site s 27 parking lots, and a third counts the total number of people entering and leaving the site on foot. Together, these three systems provide the data that the NEC can use to direct traffic to available parking close to events, ensure adequate shuttle bus service, decide when to open more registration counters, and more. In the past, the three systems were separately monitored at the site s always-hectic venue operations center (VOC). Operators had to log in to each of them, drill down to access the data they needed, and manually integrate the information together a difficult and time-consuming task for the busy staff. Our operations center is a highly stressful environment that has to deal with every aspect of a visitor s experience. Anything we can do to make the staff s job easier is enormously valuable. Murray Dickson, Head of Business Relationships, The NEC Group 3 / 6

4 Using dashboards to deliver at-a-glance data to operations The area around the National Exhibition Centre is currently undergoing a major expansion, and Resorts World Birmingham, a leisure and entertainment complex that includes a four-star boutique hotel, cinema, large casino, conference center, and retail outlets, will open in 2015, making the NEC site a 24x7 destination. Knowing that the visitor volume will more than double when Resorts World opens, the NEC decided the beleaguered VOC staff s job had to be simplified. The NEC turned to its trusted advisor CSI, whose excellent experiences with SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions on previous projects enabled it to nail down the requirements within four to six weeks and produce the answer: a dashboard that quickly and automatically combines data from the three systems and displays an up-to-date view of the entire site in an easily understandable form. The NEC began by developing a set of requirements for the dashboard and evaluating all of its incumbent systems against them. None of these systems completely fit the bill, although the existing version of SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions came close at 80%. But the NEC wanted 100%, and so it engaged help from CSI, which supplies the group with SAP software and implementation services. CSI told the NEC that the requirements could be met by deploying the latest version of the BI software. Using SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards software, CSI designed the dashboard and conducted implementation, training, and rollout, a seamless process that took about three months in total. The dashboard is now in production with CSI providing ongoing support. CSI is our chosen partner for SAP business intelligence developments. CSI has been a great partner working alongside us, helping us develop our thoughts on the best way to use SAP technology. Murray Dickson, Head of Business Relationships, The NEC Group 4 / 6

5 Improving both the current and the future visitor experience The dashboard has made life easier for the VOC and visitors alike. To learn the site s status, operators just glance at a large screen display. There the number of vacant spaces in each parking lot is displayed in color-coded form green for under 70% full, amber for 70% to 90%, and red for over 90%. The dashboard also employs up and down arrows and equal signs to indicate which parking lots are experiencing ingress, egress, or balanced traffic flow. In addition, it shows traffic and parking summary boxes, again graphically, as well as changes in foot traffic that prompt the opening or closing of registration desks. The staff loves the dashboard. With it, they make better decisions faster to streamline the entire visitor experience. Besides the VOC, the NEC has many decision makers on show floors and roadways who use their mobile devices to gain the data they need at a glance. A recent concert shows the dashboard s value. When it revealed that traffic entering the event was below expectations, the NEC investigated and found that a traffic jam on the surrounding road network was holding up attendees. With this knowledge, the organizers delayed the concert by 30 minutes, allowing many more people to enjoy the entire performance. Most events the NEC hosts are cyclic, and organizers are always trying to improve on previous performances. In the past, it was difficult or impossible to provide exhibitors all the data they wanted on prior shows; but the NEC now delivers the data they need because SAP Crystal Reports and SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence software can consolidate and capture it. To organizers, being able to receive customizable historical reports is another attraction of doing business with the NEC. 5 / 6

6 The NEC Group Using analytics to deliver more benefits The NEC expects the new version of SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions to play a major role in several new projects. The group is considering providing real-time event performance information to organizers on screens in their own offices, which will help them make dynamic adjustments to events under way and better plans for new ones. Mobile integration will be rolled out further, and data management will be improved. The NEC is also looking to increase its analysis of who its visitors are, when they come to the site, how far they drive to get there, and much more; and they want to share this information with show organizers and exhibitors. Additional plans include using SAP Lumira software for data discovery and agile visualization as well as technology from the SAP HANA platform for managing Big Data and establishing real-time access to critical data. SAP helps the NEC run simple, summarizes Murray Dickson, head of business relationships for the NEC. Studio SAP 36355enUS (15/01) 6 / 6

7 No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or for any purpose without the express permission of SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices. Some software products marketed by SAP SE and its distributors contain proprietary software components of other software vendors. National product specifications may vary. These materials are provided by SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company for informational purposes only, without representation or warranty of any kind, and SAP SE or its affiliated companies shall not be liable for errors or omissions with respect to the materials. The only warranties for SAP SE or SAP affiliate company products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services, if any. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. In particular, SAP SE or its affiliated companies have no obligation to pursue any course of business outlined in this document or any related presentation, or to develop or release any functionality mentioned therein. This document, or any related presentation, and SAP SE s or its affiliated companies strategy and possible future developments, products, and/or platform directions and functionality are all subject to change and may be changed by SAP SE or its affiliated companies at any time for any reason without notice. The information in this document is not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code, or functionality. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates, and they should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.