National Express drives away from Excel and Access for data analytics

National Express's Frank Kozurek tells Danny Palmer about the benefits QlikView's business discovery platform has brought to a company previously reliant on Excel for analytics

National Express is the UK's largest coach operator with more than 18 million journeys to over 1,000 destinations made using its services each year.

Those figures generate a lot of data, but until last year the travel firm was still relying on Microsoft Excel and Access as its main reporting tools which, as Frank Kozurek, business intelligence manager at National Express, explained, was causing issues.

"There were various reporting silos, different versions of the same numbers, no real one view of the business. Reports were manual, so it took people time to produce them and took away their time from looking at what the numbers were telling them," he told Computing.

National Express therefore needed something a bit more sophisticated in order to gain deeper insights into what was really going on in its business. It opted for QlikView's business discovery platform, particularly to examine the data collected from customers travelling on its routes.

"Some of the capabilities of QlikView that stood out were its web portal, where we could point everyone towards a 'single version of the truth'," he said, describing how such flexibility represented a key benefit.

"It's a very capable tool in terms of interrogating the data in lots of different ways, and from an end-user view it was easier than with other tools and not as limited," Kozurek continued.

"With a lot of BI tools you have predefined paths which require you to go in certain directions, but QlikView offers more flexibility and anything that makes the tool more attractive to end-users is going to make adoption easier," he said, adding that QlikView has "very much coped" with National Express's "big data challenge" while still delivering a good performance.

Kozurek told Computing that a desire to provide the best customer experience was behind the use of a BI tool in the form of QlikView.

"We're a really customer-focused business and what we're trying to do is deliver the best service we can each time our customers travel with us," he said.

"Essentially what our strategy involves is to build up what that experience looks like; this could be everything from market data in terms of where we sit compared with competitors, what our customers are telling us about what we've done well or where improvements could be made," Kozurek continued, adding that the QlikView portal is streamlining this process.

"We're trying to get that 360 view of the business and obviously looking at that in one place we can identify strengths and areas for new opportunity as well."

Kozurek went onto describe how, through the use of the QlikView Business Discovery platform, National Express can now properly analyse how it can improve "every part of the customer experience", which could help improve journeys by cutting time or providing extra buses to places that need more services.

"In looking at the journey itself, we can make sure that our standards are being kept, make sure, from a network point of view, we're going to the right places that people want and make sure any 'touch points' with us in the booking process or on the journey are as positive as possible," he said.

"We're basically farming all the data that gives us that insight together, looking at what it's telling us and examining areas for improvement but also where we're already providing best practice and identifying that as well."

Kozurek told Computing that, in all his time working in business intelligence, QlikView is the first data analytics solution that has ultimately provided better results than initially expected.

"I've been in business intelligence for over 10 years now. I'd certainly heard good things about QlikView, which I'd never used previously, but it's actually the first tool that's exceeded my expectations," he said, going on to add that support from QlikView delivery partner Data Technology was also relatively smooth.

"From a support point of view, we partner with Data Technology and they've done a great deal to support us through the implementation. They've been a breath of fresh air; I wish every consultancy was like them," he said, adding that QlikView has been a great success for National Express.

"All the way through we've been really supported by them and the tool hasn't let us down," Kozurek concluded.