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Chapter 4 • Business Reporting, Visual Analytics, and Business Performance Management 193

Application Case 4.6

Saudi Telecom Company Excels with Information Visualization
Supplying Internet and mobile services to over data center finally transforming from reactive to pro-
160 million customers across the Middle East, active. Figure 4.9 shows a sample dashboard for call
Saudi Telecom Company (STC) is one of the larg- center management.
est providers in the region, extending as far as
Africa and South Asia. With millions of customers the benefits
contacting STC daily for billing, payment, network “Dundas’ information visualization tools allowed
usage, and support, all of this information has to be us to see trends and correct issues before they
monitored somewhere. Located in the headquarters became problems,” said Mr. Eshaiwy. He added,
of STC is a data center that features a soccer field– “We decreased the amount of service tickets
sized wall of monitors all displaying information by 55 percent the year that we started using the
regarding network statistics, service analytics, and information visualization tools and dashboards.
customer calls.
The availability of the system increased, which
meant customer satisfaction levels increased, which
the problem
led to an increased customer base, which of course
When you have acres of information in front of lead to increased revenues.” With new, custom
you, prioritizing and contextualizing the data are KPIs becoming visually available to the STC team,
paramount in understanding it. STC needed to iden- Dundas’ dashboards currently occupy nearly a
tify the relevant metrics, properly visualize them, quarter of the soccer field–sized monitor wall.
and provide them to the right people, often with “Everything is on my screen, and I can drill down
time-sensitive information. “The executives didn’t and find whatever I need to know,” explained
have the ability to see key performance indicators” Waleed. He added, “Because of the design and
said Waleed Al Eshaiwy, manager of the data center structure of the dashboards, we can very quickly
at STC. “They would have to contact the technical recognize the root cause of the problems and take
teams to get status reports. By that time, it would appropriate action.” According to Mr. Eshaiwy,
often be too late and we would be reacting to prob- Dundas is a success: “The adoption rates are
lems rather than preventing them.” excellent, it’s easy to use, and it’s one of the most
successful projects that we have implemented.
the solution Even visitors who stop by my office are grabbed
right away by the look of the dashboard!”
After carefully evaluating several vendors, STC made
the decision to go with Dundas because of its rich
data visualization alternatives. Dundas business Questions for Discussion
intelligence consultants worked on-site in STC’s 1. Why do you think telecommunications compa-
headquarters in Riyadh to refine the telecommu- nies are among the prime users of information
nication dashboards so they functioned properly. visualization tools?
“Even if someone were to show you what was in 2. How did Saudi Telecom use information
the database, line by line, without visualizing it, it visualization?
would be difficult to know what was going on,” 3. What were their challenges, the proposed solu-
said Waleed, who worked closely with Dundas con- tion, and the obtained results?
sultants. The success that STC experienced led to
engagement on an enterprise-wide, mission-critical Source: Dundas, Customer Success Story, “Saudi Telecom
project to transform their data center and create a Company Used Dundas’ Information Visualization Solution,”
more proactive monitoring environment. This project dundas.com/wp-content/uploads/saudi-telecom-company-
culminated with the monitoring systems in STC’s case-study1.pdf (accessed February 2013).
(Continued )

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