BI at Burt's Bees

"Honeycomb—the Bee's Eye View" is what Burt's Bees is calling its new business intelligence (BI) initiative. The company has implemented a solution from

Business Objects for sales, marketing, finance and other operations. Burt's Bees produces natural personal-care products such as lip balm and skin care remedies.

To keep track of how products are selling and which products are selling best, the company deployed BusinessObjects Web Intelligence XI to manage sales data from the chain level, store level and from its retail Web site. The technology enables the company to observe the frequency at which stores and customers are ordering products, and to proactively manage fast growth across many distribution channels, according to a recent press release from Business Objects.

"This strategic BI initiative was specifically timed with a major advertising campaign being rolled out to promote our products and increase sales," says Ted Hein, director of information services for Burt's Bees. "The solution will not only help us measure the impact of this campaign, but allow us to detect and react more quickly to changing business conditions and ultimately make better business decisions.

"Our CFO described our previous environment as knowing the data was in our ERP system, but it was like being behind a glass wall and we couldn't get to it. The solution has helped us break the glass and turn the data into accessible information that we need to continue managing our company's extraordinary growth."

To ensure employees are comfortable working with the BI solution, Burt's Bees gave it a friendly name and interface to gather information, perform ad hoc analysis and create reports. Providing a centralized place for easy access to information has decreased the amount of time the IS department spends generating reports and enhanced the company's ability to obtain accurate numbers for near real-time analysis.

In addition, Burt's Bees purchased BusinessObjects Dashboard Manager XI and BusinessObjects Performance Manager XI to deploy customized dashboards so executives can see the latest key performance indicators such as the sales forecast, inventory turns, production information and customer satisfaction.