Digia has finished the project of Business Intelligence solution development for “Imperia-Pharma”, one of the largest pharmaceutical distributors in Russia. The solution is based on Digia Retail Analytics, the industry BI-solution for wholesale and retail trade.

"Imperia-Pharma" is Saint-Petersburg based pharmaceutical company, operating on Russian market since 1996. Its main business is wholesale of pharmaceuticals, dietary supplements, cosmetics, and various medical products. Today the company is the largest pharmaceutical distributor in North-West region of Russia. According to the official ranking of pharmaceutical distributors "Pharm-Expert" up to 2011 "Imperia-Pharma" is among the ten largest pharmaceutical distributors in Russia.

The project goal of BI-solution implementation was the optimization of the sales planning & analysis processes by different segments of the Russian pharmaceutical market in different headings, regions, producers and distributors. The company needed a tool that could help to find new ways to increase sales, reduce inventory, and increase profitability through more effective management of the commodity nomenclature.

The structure of “Imperia-Pharma” includes the head office, 5 branches and 30 representative offices in Russian cities, the company operates with 450 vendors, and client list includes more than 2,300 companies. The range includes more than 13,000 items. To keep track of sales data received from all offices for each item, analyze results and plan activities to increase sales growth, the company decided to implement the BI-solution.

After examining the Business Intelligence solutions represented on Russian market, the management of "Imperia-Pharma" chose Digia Retail Analytics solution based on Microsoft BI. One of the main factors that influenced the decision-making, was the proven Digia methodology of analytical tools implementation for pharmaceutical companies, allowing to quickly integrate the product used in pharm accounts and expert systems, as well as successful Digia experience in the field of BI-systems for pharmacy chains. In addition, Digia experts demonstrated excellent usability, flexibility and rich functionality of Digia Retail Analytics.

During the first project stage Digia experts created the basic structure of a single data repository, integrating data from the customer's accounting system, and various expert systems based on automated database audit of retail market (commercial sales, state procurements, sales to hospitals, and others), and reports from regional representatives.

After this the fully synchronized drugs directory was developed uses attributes from the Registry of Drugs and customer accounting systems.

The next step was realized the connection of additional data and statistical reports, such as incidence by regions, population, data on competitors, sales targets and others.

On the basis of these data was created a multivariate model that enables the sales analysis, to determine the company's market share in various segments and regions to make comparisons with competitors and, thus, to a more perfect plan vs. actual analysis.

This model allows the company to a simple and visual way to assess the "Imperia-Pharma" position in the market and in selected segments, to obtain information on high-margin products and running, to compare the results by region, to see the sales results due to morbidity statistics, the demand for a particular position in the depending on various factors.

Eugene Zhalskaya, Head of Analytical Department at "Imperia-Pharma" says: "Thanks to Digia and ist BI-solution we received a convenient and effective tool for daily work, the basis for strategic planning, a source of new opportunities to increase sales. The system is easy to use and very functional - this made it possible to implement it quickly and get the first positive results”.

The project results are:

• Ability to accurately determine the company's market share across regions, market segments and classes of drugs
• Ability to define targets for sales, based on incidence and population data by regions
• Plan-fact analysis
• Provide a complete and comprehensive control of multivariate analysis using a single tool
• Reduced labor costs for processing and presentation of management and analytical reporting
• Minimize errors of the "human factor" in reporting
• Support the adoption of economically sound decisions in a short time
• Provide a “single version of truth” (transparency of information)

The use of Microsoft products and industry solution on MS BI platform has allowed implementing the project in a short period of time in compliance with all requirements of the customer.