INDUSTRY

Marlabs Team Helps One of the World's Leading Communications Services Groups Build Business Intelligence Software for Major Automotive Client -- Marlabs, a global full-service provider of application development, managed and consulting services, shared details of its engagement with Young & Rubicam (Y&R), one of the world's leading communications services groups. Y&R turned to Marlabs when it needed application development services to enhance a collaborative business intelligence solution so that its automotive marketing team could support the development and measurement of high-profile media campaigns. Based on the Microsoft SQL Server and Web technologies, the custom application, which serves as a competitive information knowledgebase system, also utilizes Cognos to produce quick, accurate reports. Users can collaborate across work groups as well as with their marketing partners, such as advertising and media agencies. The scalable solution ensures that Y&R's team, as well as the client's advertising, marketing and senior management teams, have "any time" access to information across the network regardless of location. In addition to the standard reports provided in the system, Marlabs helped develop business intelligence capabilities using online analytical processing (OLAP) to allow complex queries to be executed and then viewed on-demand. As a result, Y&R's team can respond to client inquiries with custom reports that evaluate existing advertising strategies and project media campaigns prior to their implementation. The architecture designed and developed by the Marlabs Business Intelligence team ensured that the solution would scale up to meet the requirements of the users - and today the database is over half a terabyte and growing daily. There are over 6,000 custom and standard reports being generated by the system every month. Siby Vadakekkara, Marlabs' CEO, said, "A customer-centric approach from our Business Intelligence solutions team, and our drive to deliver on time and under budget, was appreciated by Y&R. The feedback we have received from Y&R is reflective of Marlabs' willingness to always go the extra mile for our clients. Our ability to meet critical milestones has been a major cornerstone in the overall success of the project, and Y&R has shared their enthusiastic thanks with our team."