IBM Business Partner Case Study
Build-A-Bear Workshop’s Scandinavian
franchise boosts business intelligence with
IBM Cognos and EG
Overview
 The Challenge
 The Solution
 The Benefits
Build-A-Bear Workshop’s
Working with EG (www.eg.dk), an
Daily reports enable managers to
Scandinavian franchise had grown
IBM Business Partner, the
make timely decisions, based on
rapidly, opening fourteen stores in
company implemented IBM
accurate, up-to-date information.
three countries. To keep on top of
Cognos 8 Business Intelligence,
Cognos provides information on
its supply chain and distribution
which analyses data from a new
sales at each store and stock levels
network, the franchise needed
Microsoft Dynamics ERP system
at the warehouse, simplifying
access to accurate daily sales
and automatically sends daily
replenishment and making it easier
figures and inventory reports – but
reports to key management teams.
to meet consumer demand. The
its existing ERP package was
automated reporting process is
unable to cope.
designed to minimise workload for
IT staff and eliminate data quality
issues.
Build-A-Bear Workshop was founded
native reporting tools in Dynamics AX,
manually from the ERP system, which
in 1997 in St. Louis, Missouri, and has
or deploying software from Targit, a
was cumbersome and time-consuming,”
grown to become one of the world’s
Danish BI vendor – but the in-house
says Jesper Thomsen. “Now, everything
most successful children’s brands,
team ultimately selected IBM Cognos
is fully automated: the reports are
with more than 400 stores worldwide.
8 Business Intelligence.
delivered every day and we don’t have to
lift a finger.”
The company owns all its stores in the
US, Puerto Rico, Canada, France and
“We wanted to choose software
the UK, and operates on a franchise
from a major player in the business
He concludes: “We are always careful
model in other countries.
intelligence market, so that it would
not to take on new IT projects unless
be easy to find partners to support
there is a compelling business case,
In 2004, a new Build-A-Bear franchise
the new environment,” says Jesper
but BI is addictive – once users become
was set up to expand the business into
Thomsen. “Cognos is one of the
accustomed to receiving daily reports,
Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The
leading global business intelligence
they start seeing the advantages of more
franchise was an immediate success,
brands, and IBM has a network of
detailed analysis. IBM Cognos will help
and quickly grew to encompass 14
Business Partners in Scandinavia with
us extend our BI environment and give
stores across the three countries.
expertise in business intelligence.”
users the information they need to make
Today, this franchise employs more
the right decisions for our business.”
than 180 people – 160 in the stores,
Partnering for success
and a further 25 based at the head
EG, an IBM Business Partner with
office in Tommerup, Denmark.
offices throughout Denmark, Norway
and Sweden, helped the company
“When we started out, with just a
deploy both the new ERP software
couple of stores, we used a Microsoft
and the IBM Cognos 8 Business
Navision C5 solution for ERP – but
Intelligence environment.
this just wasn’t scalable enough as
the business grew,” explains Jesper
Jesper Thomsen recalls: “We
Thomsen, Head of IT at Build-A-Bear
made the decision for Cognos in
Workshop’s Scandinavian franchise.
January 2007, and the software was
implemented in June. The Cognos
“Build-A-Bear’s unique selling point
consultants from EG were extremely
is to allow customers to create and
skilled and knowledgeable, and they
personalise their own bear, and there
worked hard to help us overcome the
is a large number of options to choose
initial challenges of the project – we
from. Since some items are more
had a few stability problems caused
popular than others, we need to know
by the ERP implementation.”
exactly what is selling in each store so
that we can send the right stock from
EG helped the company create a
the warehouse, and order the right
range of reports, tailored for different
components from Build-A-Bear in
users. For example, the store
the US. We needed a better reporting
managers receive a daily sales report
solution to help us extract and analyse
by email every morning, and a more
this information.”
detailed version of this report is sent to
managers at head office in Denmark.
Finding the ideal solution
In addition to these sales reports,
The company decided to move to
the Cognos solution also analyses
a new Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP
inventory and stock movements,
package, and asked several suppliers
and creates reports for Build-A-Bear
for proposals on how to implement an
corporate headquarters in the US.
effective business intelligence solution
IBM Danmark A/S
Nymoellevej 91
2800 Kgs. Lyngby
Denmark
The IBM home page can be found at ibm.com
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com and Cognos are
trademarks of International Business Machines
Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions
worldwide. A current list of other IBM trademarks is
available on the Web at “Copyright and trademark
information” at
http://www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.
Other company, product or service names may be
trademarks or service marks of others.
References in this publication to IBM products,
programs or services do not imply that IBM intends
to make these available in all countries in which IBM
operates. Any reference to an IBM product, program
or service is not intended to imply that only IBM’s
product, program or service may be used. Any
functionally equivalent product, program or service
may be used instead.
All customer examples cited represent how some
customers have used IBM products and the results
they may have achieved. Actual environmental
costs and performance characteristics will vary
depending on individual customer configurations
and conditions.
IBM hardware products are manufactured from new
parts,or new and used parts. In some cases, the
hardware product may not be new and may have
been previously installed. Regardless, IBM warranty
terms apply.
This publication is for general guidance only.
for daily reporting. Various approaches
“Formerly, when we needed to create
were suggested, including using the
a report we had to extract the data
Photographs may show design models.
© Copyright IBM Corp. 2009. All rights reserved.
BIC03020-DKEN-00 (April 2009)