ALZ

Extranet for high performance customer support

This Case Study documents one step in a long-range project at Ugine & ALZ (read more).
Since the content of this documents dates from 2003, it can thus contain some facts and figures which are no longer accurate.

CUSTOMER CASE

Industry Steel Manufacturing Business Issue The need of better data consistency and manageability. Solution SAS® Enterprise Data Integration Server SAS® Enterprise BI Server SAS® OLAP Server Benefits Ugine & ALZ uses its production capacity more effectively and improves delivery and service levels to its customers.

This Case Study documents one step in a long-range project at Ugine & ALZ (read more). Since the content of this documents dates from 2003, it can thus contain some facts and figures which are no longer accurate.

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Ugine&ALZ Belgium is a major Belgian stainless steel producer. They rely heavily on a password protected extranet to keep their customers continuously informed regarding the status of orders. The extranet also offers a request for quotation service and complete financial information. All data that appears on the extranet is collected from databases by SAS software. Since the completion of the merger with Ugine, the French counterpart, one of the first items on the new company's agenda is to build a common data warehouse. "We have specified SAS Software because it is clearly superior to other software," notes Kris Vranken, DWH Program Manager. "It has a much higher performance, it makes it easier to manage data, has the capability to improve existing data models, and is easy to maintain."

Extranet increases customer retention

It is far more expensive to turn a prospect into a new customer than it is to retain an existing one. This is a fact of business life familiar to every sales and marketing manager. But how do you obtain customer loyalty when there are many suppliers able to offer similar, equal, or even better product quality nowadays? The best solution is to offer services that add value to your products, that is, giving your customers access to useful information that wasn’t available in the past.

An extranet presents an interesting pallet of possibilities for effective customer communication. Access can be limited if you wish. Customers can be given a userid and password to enter the extranet. There, specific data and documents can be continuously made available as desired. Because obtaining this information from other suppliers takes so much more time, building an extranet can improve customer retention. And that is exactly what Ugine & ALZ decided to do.

Fast and smooth retrieval of data and documents with SAS

Ugine&ALZ Belgium developed its own extranet prior to the merger with Ugine. “In the ALZ extranet, data and documents are retrieved from databases quickly and smoothly by SAS”, states Vranken. Customers can check which orders have been received, processed, sent, etc. Outstanding payments and credit limits can be retrieved as well. Another important asset is the ability to check stock levels. Customers can request a quotation for products with the properties of their choice. The quotation for a stock product is sent within four hours of receipt. Quality certificates verifying DIN and ISO standards are also available, as well as analytical data for every product.

All of these attributes will be part of the new combined system as well. “But in the future, we will also offer invoice information and organize auctions with the extranet,” predicts Vranken. “We will be able to build an ever more stable and successful partnership with our customers, thanks to these capabilities. But first, a single extranet structure will have to be set up to serve the new company. This will be accomplished by entering all of the ALZ capabilities into the existing Ugine extranet.”

Highly compatible new data warehouse

Ugine & ALZ

SAS has a very short response time. The system was up and running in just three months and all updates are swiftly and easily accomplished.

The new data warehouse to be built for Ugine & ALZ is a direct consequence of the merger. “But the performance of the existing system will be improved still further,” Vranken points out. “Business logic will be centralized and accessible from anywhere. We want a single platform that utilizes a single language and any technology, now and in the future. That is precisely why we chose SAS software” he continues. There are a number of significant advantages when using SAS Integration Technology. These include the ability to build the front-end based on SAS data, without specific SAS knowledge. Also, DLLs and ASP can be retained while a new and better data model can be introduced and built on SAS components. And on top of all of that, data management will be a far less complex procedure compared to the existing system and maintenance will be even easier. “Last but not least, SAS is regularly introducing new software upgrades or packages, based on market needs and customer requests.

They know that to retain customers, comp anies must offer more added value than customers initially expect.” The end result will be a new data warehouse with greatly improved extranet performance that opens many new possibilities for Ugine & ALZ customers.