ISC Pulls Into Fast Lane With WebFOCUS

Snapshot

Organization International Speedway Corporation (www.iscmotorsports.com), a leading promoter of motor sports events.

The Challenge Give financial officers and ticketing directors better visibility into financial and CRM initiatives that affect corporate performance.

The Strategy Establish a centralized, user-friendly reporting environment to enforce consistency in how revenues are reported, customers are segmented, and profitability is determined.

The Results Standardized reporting for all 12 of ISC's speedways; reporting of ticket sales, payments, and other financial data; increased visibility throughout the company; better-informed personnel; and more efficient report generation and distribution.

Information Builders Solution WebFOCUS, Consulting.

When a NASCAR driver speeds toward the checkered flag in the final lap of a race, there's much more at stake than a trophy. Motor sports is a billion-dollar industry where the major players face many of the same business challenges of most large corporations. For International Speedway Corporation (ISC), one of the largest promoters of motor sports in the United States, fast information systems are critical for retaining a competitive edge in this accelerating market. That's why ISC chose Information Builders' WebFOCUS to rev up its business intelligence, data analysis, and self-service reporting capabilities as part of a new customer relationship management (CRM) solution.

With a primary interest in 12 major motor sports facilities across the country, including the Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, ISC currently promotes more than 100 events annually and is well known for its promotion of NASCAR events. "These events are our core product," says Craig Neeb, chief information officer at ISC. "Ticket sales are the starting point for determining revenue, profit, and other business data. WebFOCUS is helping us obtain accurate information from our centralized ticketing system."

Based in Daytona Beach, Florida, ISC also owns and operates MRN Radio, the nation's largest independent sports radio network, and Americrown Service Corporation, which provides catering and food, beverage, and merchandise concessions for motor sports events.

Racing to e-Business

WebFOCUS is at the heart of an ambitious e-business strategy that involves CRM initiatives, content management, and e-commerce. In order to personalize its customer-service activities and streamline ticketing processes, ISC installed FanTracker, a Web-based ticketing system from Vertical Alliance, at all 12 of its tracks.

"The Vertical Alliance FanTracker system provides us with a centralized ticketing engine that integrates with our management functions and applications," explains Kathy Focazio, director of Business Applications at ISC. "It can accept information from multiple channels including the Web, box offices, call centers, and kiosks."

The FanTracker platform includes fully integrated content management for communicating with customers, e-commerce to exchange value with them, and CRM tools that enable businesses to better know them. To fully leverage the information collected by this comprehensive environment, ISC sought a business intelligence environment that would help managers track customers' preferences, purchasing information, and buying proclivities.

"We needed a dynamic, Web-based reporting tool that would allow ticket directors to obtain information about ticket sales from a simple interface," explains Neeb. "To make the most of the centralized ticking engine, we required an information delivery system that could provide answers to a variety of questions about ticket sales, trends, customer profiles, facilities, and accounting."

In the Driver's Seat

In a nutshell, ISC needed a self-service reporting tool that would allow ticketing directors and financial officers to obtain information on demand from a number of different data sources. "Our ticketing database was built with Oracle," says Neeb. "We wanted a reporting tool that was proficient with that database, yet not limited to it. We also had several legacy database systems that we want to incorporate."

Flexibility and ease of use are also important for this highly distributed organization. ISC's production applications are located in a data center in Houston, Texas, while its testing and development facilities are in Daytona Beach, Florida, and its racing venues are scattered around the country. IT pros simply aren't in a position to do a lot of hand-holding for users. "We sought a reporting system that our users could understand without having to undergo a lengthy training process," Focazio explains.

Another thing that made WebFOCUS attractive to ISC was the number of platforms it supports. The WebFOCUS Reporting Server provides native access to more than 85 data sources on 35 computer platforms. It can combine data from many different data sources on the fly, sparing developers the task of writing code to support data access, transformation, and migration, while dramatically simplifying report development.

ISC also chose WebFOCUS for its executive dashboard, portal integration, and browser-based reporting capabilities. "We can distribute WebFOCUS reports to all of our users through a Web browser," says Neeb.

Under the Hood

Once the new ticketing system was in place, one of the most pressing priorities was to enforce standardized reporting procedures for all 12 speedways. To propel this reporting project into high gear, ISC turned to Information Builders Consulting for assistance.

"Information Builders helped us design the reporting architecture, craft a user interface, and tie it all into the back-end database assets," says Focazio. "The consultants were a big help – we were very happy with their services."

Information Builders Consulting installed WebFOCUS on a Microsoft Windows NT server, where it communicates directly with the Oracle transaction-processing database that underlies FanTracker. Then they helped ISC create a series of new reports, including standard accounting reports, general ledger reports, payment reports, facilities manifests, order confirmations, invoices, and renewals. Authorized users enjoy having this dynamic business intelligence and reporting content on demand as they make decisions that affect the business going forward. "Standardized reporting has enforced corporate-wide consistency in the way we track ticket sales and project revenue," says Neeb.

WebFOCUS includes a suite of financial reporting capabilities to automate the collection, analysis, and presentation of financial information. Users can instantly obtain timely information in familiar formats such as Adobe Acrobat PDF files and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. Excel PivotTables can be automatically generated and saved from any report, combining WebFOCUS' advanced reporting with Excel's powerful data manipulation capabilities to take analysis exercises to the next level. WebFOCUS even maintains drill-downs and styling when a report is saved to an Excel or PDF file.

"Because WebFOCUS is so user-friendly, we are seeing rapid adoption among the user base," says Focazio. "Users sign on using a standard Web browser and generate reports in their choice of formats."

Eyeing the Finish Line

Focazio admits they have only scratched the surface of WebFOCUS' potential. But already they are benefiting from its ability to supply a complete, accurate, up-to-the-minute view of financial and corporate performance. "WebFOCUS provides us with the crucial, day-to-day reports that give us better visibility into our business," says Neeb.

In the future, ISC plans to expand its WebFOCUS system to include a user-friendly environment for ad hoc reporting. "We have enjoyed great success with standard reports," Focazio concludes. "WebFOCUS has also made it easy for us to create duplicates of the reports that already existed in the legacy systems. Ultimately, we plan to roll it out to a wider variety of users, such as accountants and business managers, and encourage them to create their own reports from scratch."

But even in its initial incarnation, the new reporting environment has proven its worth. WebFOCUS has helped ISC bring its information delivery capabilities from the starting line to the winner's circle, providing a complete view of financial and corporate performance. "WebFOCUS is precisely the reporting tool we were looking for to enhance our CRM initiatives," concludes Neeb. "It's a great system for all types of business intelligence and reporting needs."