"I've worked with them for about 10 years.  Again and again, they quickly turn what is theoretical into something tangible.   They have a breadth of knowledge to help in whatever area we need, not only OLAP, but also relational, web, reporting, long term planning and many others.  It's a real long-term partnership."  Doug Burke, Director, Analytic Systems, Activision

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"We knew we had a problem with our budget/planning process. We knew that it was something that was overwrought.  It forced people to take three-to-four months of their lives, and put everything else on hold, and do a very arduous, detailed, bottoms-up budget process that at the end of the day was fairly mechanical, and didn’t answer a lot of the executive’s questions." Greg Edwards, Controller, The Irvine Company

We are proud of our long list of successful projects, including work for the following fine companies:

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Sample Client Success Stories

Narratus worked with an enterprise-wide team building an enhanced data warehouse and reporting environment using SQL Server and Hyperion Essbase for both First American Title and their Canadian operation, First Canadian Title. First American had acquired many smaller companies and allowed each to continue doing business in their own way rather than creating a company wide set of policies or systems. Eventually, this lack of consistency impeded the ability to get accurate reports and track profitability, so Narratus was called on to standardize reporting across the 12 disparate divisions of First American.  As part of this project, policies, procedures, nomenclature and business rules were standardized, producing great gains in efficiency described by First American as even better than expected.

Nissan Motor Acceptance Corporation engaged DIA to produce an enterprise data model as the first step of a data warehouse motion. DIA brought Essbase into the modeling process as a tool to demonstrate our understanding of an analyst’s or departments’ business needs.  Users were interviewed to help create the enterprise wide model, and in exchange for their time, expertise, and support, cubes were built for them that solved one or more of their key reporting issues.  This active approach to discovery allowed DIA to deliver solutions to users while learning about their data issues and reporting needs.  While engaged in this process, management observed that DB2/QMF queries were using so many mainframe processing cycles that operational systems were slowing down.  DIA was challenged to off-load all decision support from the mainframe onto Essbase, effectively building their data warehouse in Essbase.  Today, sixteen cubes satisfy almost all of NMAC’s decision support needs; mainframe resources are free to process loan and lease applications.

Quick access to good, clean data breeds the need for more access to more good, clean data.  International Rectifier built a decision support system that provided financial and sales information to corporate users on an MS Access platform.  The system was a big hit.  Soon, field sales reps and international affiliates wanted access, too.  However, the business of managing the Access database became a losing proposition, and data integrity as well as system performance became casualties of the struggle to deliver more data to more people more quickly.  DIA implemented an international solution in Essbase, Excel, and VB, utilizing tools developed by a Hyperion partner, LEX Software.  Data transfer mechanics were built to pull data from their AS400 platform and integrate it with other relevant data.  The scaleable solution, in production for more than a year, is a clear success.