Based on a strategy change, Denmark’s largest labour union is in the process of implementing a new business intelligence solution from TARGIT. The ambition is a comprehensive clear-out of old and inefficient IT-systems that will ensure a better use of IT-expenditures and trim the 3F organization.

Hjørring, January 10, 2007 - Business intelligence is one of the key words in 3F’s effort to strengthen and secure the organization for the future. The unions are traditionally working with large quantities of data and an efficient management of data therefore equals operational savings and improved ability to compete in the market. For years 3F has used a SAS-solution but this solution is now replaced by a solution from TARGIT. The systems change is part of a wide consolidation and standardization process that will enable 3F’s IT department to deliver targeted and easily available information to the employees at 3F.

Focus on user-friendliness

For an organization with 2.650 employees, costs for education in new programms play a significant role. Part of the reason why 3F is now changing to TARGIT BI Suite is that the solution is simple and build up in a user-friendly way, so costs for implementation can be kept to a minimum.

”There is an increasing demand to deliver basic, statistical information in a well-arranged way. This task is currently in the hands of a few people in our IT-department, and as a result we experience bottle-necks during busy periods. With the solution from TARGIT all employees in our 80 departments get a tool that they can manage with a minimum of education. Administratively speaking it is a great advantage because we can now push data and statistics out to the users, so they – on their own - can find the information they need, when they need it”, explains Technical- and Operation Manager in 3F, Jens Bille.

In-house is preferred

From an IT-perspective, the unions can basically be divided into those who buy or rent IT-systems from other companies and those who develop standards products in-house. 3F belongs to the few unions in the last mentioned group and 3F constantly works to adjust and maximize the value of the standard software from Microsoft which makes up he IT ground platform. At the moment this happens in close cooperation with Accobat, who has delivered the BI solution to 3F and now assists with the implementation. ”The cooperation with Accobat will help us transform great quantities of data to real value for our users and members. We have lots of know-how in house because we run the IT-systems ourselves and we have to use this knowledge to reveal and develop our weak points, so we constantly improve at running a union. The Microsoft platform with TARGIT on top provides us a flexible tool that we among other things use for creating an overview of the enquiries that we receive from our member. In that way we know how to adjust our services so they match the needs of our members”, says Jens Bille. 3F uses Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for integration of data among member-, task- and finance-systems. The data is gathered in a data warehouse and the user can access data in the data warehouse through TARGIT BI Suite.

BI at 3F’s service

Lower operational costs and improved service towards the members is high on the strategic agenda of 3F. Jens Bille is convinced that the IT-department can carry a large part of the task by focusing sharply at how BI can optimize work processes in 3F.  ”Our IT-strategy reflects our increased focus on the potential of using dynamic and user-friendly IT-solutions. We have already gained huge savings in operations and within a couple of years all relevant data will be easily available via TARGIT BI Suite. This means faster case processing and an increased flexibility to the benefit of both members and users. In other words, we are well on our way to create a new and trimmed 3F“, Jens Bille concludes. At the turn of the year 2005-06 3F had 362,588 members. 3F or ’Fagligt Fælles Forbund’ was founded when KAD (Kvindeligt Arbejderforbund i Danmark) and SiD (Specialarbejderforbundet i Danmark) merged on January 1 2005. RBF (Restaurations Branchens Forbund) has been a part of 3F since July 1 2006.

For more information please contact: info@targit.com

About TARGIT

TARGIT was founded in 1986 with the current CEO, Morten Sandlykke, as one of the founding partners. Today, TARGIT is the largest developer of business intelligence in Denmark and the core product, TARGIT Business Intelligence Suite, is distributed by more than 250 business partners around the world. The first business intelligence-product from TARGIT was based on the idea of user-friendliness, flexibility, and simple implementation; core values which have since characterized TARGIT’s solutions. TARGIT is Microsoft Gold Certified Partner within the competencies ISV/Software Solutions and Data Management Solutions.