Medtronic implemented a business intelligence (BI) solution from Business Objects to replace its outdated 10-year-old reporting system. The BI solution provides consolidated reporting on critical data from various sources and allows secure access to reports over the web for its 5,000+ employees. This enables more timely decision-making across departments like sales, marketing, and finance. Employees can now track KPIs like inventories, costs, and sales more easily from any location. As a result, Medtronic is making better business decisions.

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Medtronic
“The best benefit so far is our ability to share and view reports over the web. This
allows us to track inventories, shipping costs, sales, and financial data—basically all
important corporate data—more easily. We’re making better business decisions
as a result.”
Suresh Lokghnadhan, System Administrator, Medtronic
10-Year-Old Reporting
System Needed Updating
Medtronic currently offers products,
therapies, and services that enhance or extend
the lives of over 5 million people. Each year,
these 5 million patients benefit from
Medtronic's technologies—which treat
conditions such as diabetes, heart disease,
neurological disorders, and vascular illnesses.
Its products range from diagnostic equipment
to therapies that manage serious long-term
conditions.
With employees and customers scattered
around the world, Medtronic’s ability to
consolidate and report on critical business
information is no easy task. Previously, to
report on important sales and financial
figures, the company used a multidimensional
database developed with Pilot Lightship.
While this complex system was in place at
Medtronic for over 10 years, IT staff more
recently recognized that sales and finance staff
across the globe needed a more user-friendly
program—one that would allow them to run
reports without enlisting IT staff for help.
“We wanted to use one solution across the board,
and we couldn’t standardize on Pilot,” says
Lokghnadhan.
The company also needed a reporting solution
that could work seamlessly with various data
sources—including its Oracle databases and
SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) and
customer relationship management (CRM)
systems.
With BI, 400 Reports Run Daily
Medtronic chose to standardize on a business
intelligence (BI) solution from Business
Objects, which included Crystal Reports,
BusinessObjects, and BusinessObjects Web
Intelligence. Starting with the sales team,
the BI solution was quickly deployed
enterprisewide and now includes the supply-
chain management, inventory, shipping,
finance, administration, marketing, and
operations departments.
CHALLENGE
1 Data contained in
disparate data
sources
1 Reporting system
was over 10 years
old
SOLUTION
1 Web-based features
helped employees
access data easier
than ever before
BENEFITS
1 Enabled more
timely
decision-making
1 Allowed access to
reports over the
web—from any
location
BI STANDARDIZATION
United States of America

2. 107PHAR MACEUTICAL/HEALTHCARE
Medtronic wanted a BI solution that could offer
security at the individual employee level, based
on job function. For example, the company builds
specific reports using BusinessObjects for
operations, sales management, and finance.
However, Medtronic did not want to give every
employee access to these reports as they contained
valuable business data.
According to Lokghnadhan, “Only certain employees
need to view these reports. BusinessObjects worked with
the security settings we initially set up on the Oracle
side. Now we can ensure that only the finance team,
for example, has access to financial reports that contain
sensitive corporate information.”
Currently, about 5,130 Medtronic employees use
BusinessObjects. Over 2,100 users are designing
their own custom reports, and another 20 users are
using Web Intelligence to distribute reports via the
web to a mass corporate audience. Medtronic now
runs 800 scheduled reports using BusinessObjects
—with 400 reports running on a daily basis.
Global Access to Data, 24/7
With BusinessObjects, several teams across the
company—including sales, marketing, shipping,
and operations—now have critical business
information at their fingertips.
For example, sales representatives around the
world can view their individual or team’s progress
on a day-to-day basis. This allows the sales force to
quickly identify any problems and make better
sales decisions on the go. Moreover, the supply-
chain management and shipping departments can
track how fast customers are receiving their
products. And the shipping department can drill
down into the reports to view which carrier or
shipping method is most cost-effective.
Medtronic’s marketing department uses BI from
Business Objects to measure the success of its
marketing campaigns. The marketing team can also
view how a particular product has sold over the
past five or 10 years more easily than before and
adjust its go-to-market strategy accordingly. “The
information they need is all in one place. They just go
and run a query based on the specific product and
timeframe they want to evaluate,” adds Lokghnadhan.
The best benefit so far is our ability to share and
view reports over the web. This allows us to track
inventories, shipping costs, sales, and financial
data—basically all important corporate data—
more easily. We’re making better business
decisions as a result.
About Medtronic
1 Activity:
Medical technology
1 Date founded:
1949
Founded in 1949 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Medtronic is now the world leader in
medical technology—providing therapy and technology solutions for people with
chronic diseases. Medtronic currently offers products, therapies, and services that
enhance or extend the lives of over 5 million people.
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