The situation. Established in 1954 as the country's first polytechnic, Singapore Polytechnic has trained about 150,000 people and offers almost eighty diplomas and post-diplomas to 18,000 students in each enrolment, with a staff of more than 1,500 across many departments.
The challenge. The institution had been collecting data for a basic BI tool, but what it got was a static, one-dimensional report with no filtering or analysis. Looking at the same data from another angle meant asking IT for a new report, which could take weeks. Decisions stalled for want of the right numbers at the meeting, and were pushed to another sitting once the report arrived. Performance management needed views across school resources, IT, venues and estates, and human resources.
The evaluation. Three criteria: cost-friendly, easy to use, and a gentle learning curve. Singapore Polytechnic considered SAP and Oracle options, including an upgrade of its incumbent tool, and weighed the quality and responsiveness of the service provider because it wanted a long-term partner. KMS met all three criteria and the partnership test.
What KMS built. Qlik on SAP BusinessObjects, SAP R3, Oracle Xcelsius and an Oracle data warehouse, implemented across human resources, finance and every academic department with a lean team of three people on the Polytechnic's side. Building the application from scratch to implementation took one month, against the two to three months the institution's other IT applications usually needed.
"The business intelligence tool from KMS has given us the foresight to see information ahead, at just a click of a button. This enables us to make better decisions and work more proactively." — Toh Ser Khoon, Deputy Director, Department of Organisation Development, Singapore Polytechnic
Results. More than 200 users, including senior management, deputy directors and key appointment holders, retrieve their own analysis at a click. The Polytechnic evaluates full-time and specialist courses, tracks student progress, co-curricular activities and facilities, and follows how graduates fare in industry years later. It estimates a few hundred thousand dollars saved in man-hours and, on a conservative measure, cost savings of SGD 2.8 million over ten years.
Singapore Polytechnic takes report requests off the IT queue and puts analysis on every director's desk