Ahold USA

Two upstarts at Ahold approached andCulture with a unique problem: While they liked the benefits of business intelligence dashboards, the licensing costs and complexity inherent in available solutions were nonstarters. Additionally, it wasn't clear they would support enough levels of data access permissioning. We took the challenge and created a powerful enterprise information dashboard that's both easy to use and easy on the eyes.

In fact, EPM, as it's called, has become integral to the corporate culture, now deployed to more than 5,000 corporate users and thousands of store operations personnel. EPM allows complex data sets to be easily viewed, commented on, shared and collaborated upon. It's built in Adobe Flex and, while it's completely web-based, it's also browser-agnostic, allowing it to run seamlessly on many different types of clients across the country.

What We Did

• Developed a novel way of managing highly complex user data rights.
• Created an engaging, easy-to-use interface that's intuitive enough for daily use by line managers.
• Achieved positive ROI for Ahold within the first year of use alone.
• Completed one of the world's first enterprise deployment of a Flex-based application used by thousands worldwide (in 2007).
• Provide continual innovation at Ahold's request, to develop new ways of broadening the reach and scope of EPM internally.

EPM has existed for almost a decade, giving us the advantage of many years of real world testing by several thousand users. It has also clarified our vision for "business intelligence." As intended from the outset, EPM continues to be:

• An exceptionally user-friendly way of viewing and analyzing three-dimensional data.
• A lightweight, portable, thin client application that does not require extensive IT infrastructure to run and manage.
• An easily maintainable BI application that does not rely upon proprietary technology or programming skill sets to maintain.