Hoya Lens improves its vision with StarQuery

Hoya Lens was lacking a reporting tool, specifically one that could provide statistics for decision-making. “The IT department, already overloaded with work, had the time-consuming task of constantly writing new queries which often lacked the desired results”. The company desperately needed an Oracle compatible tool that could provide “ad hoc” and real-time reports while being “easy to use for end-users familiar with Excel”. StarQuery was the solution with the answer to Hoya’s challenges.

Solution

Hoya tested various solutions including a 15-day trial of Symtrax, and decided to go with StarQuery due to its compatibility with Oracle. None of the competitive solutions that Hoya tested could match the advantages that Symtrax solutions offer in terms of real-time data, a user-friendly interface, stability, and the quality of support.

“Quality of support has been the most important criterion in our choice, and the Symtrax team is as accommodating as they are helpful. The team launched a video conference to help us install and show us the basics we needed to be familiar with the solution. We were able to use the product with existing data and see StarQuery benefits in terms of time and quality.”

Using StarQuery avoids conflicts of interest between end-users and the IT department. For end-users, it is all about simplicity and usability in Excel with StarQuery for Excel; and for the IT, synchronizing the database with StarQuery MapDesigner is the primary function.

Benefits

StarQuery has eased the workload of the IT department and let Business Analysts deal directly with their own reports, creating added value for Hoya. The Sales Department is also benefiting from StarQuery. The Sales team is now able to extract complex statistics quicker and be more proactive. Sales representatives have improved their understanding of their customers with real time reports. “We now run a query, that at maximum takes 10 minutes, compared to 2 to 3 days before...”

“Symtrax consultants have also automated reports updates with a simple button in an Excel spreadsheet. It is much easier to run queries and distribute them in a timely manner.”

From a technical point of view, StarQuery MapDesigner allows Hoya Lens to “centralize all information in a single file, send all files by email on a daily basis, plus change maps and databases easily.” This means end-users are not required to know how to create database maps.