The Perfect Match
TARGIT is a perfect match and wows upper management; we were sold on how easy and interactive the TARGIT suite was," says Catalin Momirla, IT manager of Aer Rianta International North America (ARINA).
After implementing TARGIT Decision Suite, ARINA was thrilled that the company's Finance, Purchasing, and Inventory Control departments, and even store managers could create analyses easily and generate individual reports with a common language thanks to TARGIT's business intelligence and analytics for airports solution.
As a result of the common language reporting, employee engagement increased as they could see how their efforts contributed to the corporate goals and objectives. These corporate goals and objectives were now materialized as key performance indicators (KPIs) within TARGIT, which helped management and all employees easily understand where the company stood on a daily basis.
Besides creating reports easily, TARGIT gives ARINA more leverage in negotiations or applications for new tenders by making it easier to quantify the value of their Runway Duty Free locations to the host airport. To assist with this, TARGIT BI Suite enables ARINA to run reports that analyze their historical capture rate, the amount spent per passenger, and gross margin by product category. Catalin Momirla states, "Before TARGIT, we combined the needed data from our ERP system and typed it into multiple Excel spreadsheets, but it was a long and meticulous process. With TARGIT, we can analyze and view the data needed in one cohesive report. The overall benefit when applying for new tenders is that we can run scenarios like "what will the impact be on sales and profitability if our capture rate increases by 1, 2, or 3%?"
As a duty-free retailer, ARINA must consider the customs allowances of the countries that passengers/customers intend to visit. "TARGIT allows us to strategically plan our product inventory based on the custom allowances," says the IT Manager. One specific customs regulation for the United States that ARINA must adhere to is that all individual items must be priced no more than $100 USD, and customers can spend no more than $800 USD on one purchase. "In order to have a successful business with all those restrictions, TARGIT allows us to quickly determine which products to stock based on their individual profit margins and, at the same time, respect the constraints employed by U.S. customs. In addition, TARGIT enables us to turn this knowledge into additional profit by devoting promotional dollars to the right product categories," states Catalin Momirla.
TARGIT in All Departments
In 2006, ARINA sought out better management and integration of their business systems and went live with Microsoft Dynamics NAV as their ERP System. Implementing the ERP System initially proved to be a suitable tool for managing day-to-day operations. "After the NAV implementation was complete, we now had the raw data needed to analyze our business functions, but we did not have an efficient way of getting it," says Momirla and continues, "Our new ERP lacked significant Business Intelligence analysis capabilities that management needed to pull together big picture snapshots necessary for operations management and strategic planning."
Without a source that pulled data into one environment that could be reviewed quickly, management was left with the tedious and time-consuming task of deciphering individual reporting that lacked consistency or a common language. Completing essential tasks like determining the cost of sales, establishing optimum inventory levels, and budgeting for the promotional calendar became daunting because reporting was inconsistent across the departments. Without one program that translated information across department boundaries, management could not make informed business decisions in a timely manner. ARINA management, realizing they needed to find a solution to their Business Intelligence gap, began searching, and in early 2010, they were introduced to TARGIT.
In keeping with their commitment to utilizing TARGIT to improve their operations and productivity enterprise-wide, ARINA is planning to utilize TARGIT in all departments by the entire staff in the next year. TARGIT is now being used in Ireland as well. "Based on the achievements over only a few months, we can say confidently that TARGIT will help the ARINA management and the regular user to be more productive and efficient and take the right decision at the right moment," concludes Momirla.
