Zara Investment Holding Co. Ltd. (Zara) is dedicated to excellence in all areas of its business. The five-star hotels Zara owns are pioneers in setting the standard in Jordan for luxury, architectural beauty, and quality service. As the first company in Jordan to adopt a sophisticated business intelligence solution, Zara is also becoming the benchmark for efficiency in financial accounting and performance management in the hospitality industry.

Like so many companies, Zara relied heavily on manual processes for consolidating and analyzing financial data reported by its hotel operations before it implemented its Microsoft® Business Intelligence solution. Hotel operators manually compiled reports in a variety of formats, sending spreadsheets to Zara headquarters by e-mail. Zara’s accounting team then had to aggregate the data and create consolidated reports by hand, a time-consuming, cumbersome, and error-prone endeavour.

Zara implemented the Microsoft Business Intelligence solution featuring Microsoft PerformancePoint™ Server to facilitate the data reporting and consolidation process, reduce the potential for errors, and enable richer data analysis. Now, Zara must no longer wait for reports from hotel operators to know where the business stands. It can access consolidated data daily and stay on top of key performance indicators (KPIs) through a carefully designed PerformancePoint Server dashboard. Significant operational daily indicators are then pushed through short mobile messages (SMS) to key stakeholders. Due to the fact that Zara accesses raw data pulled straight from hotel management systems, the company has virtually eliminated the possibility for human error in reporting the financial figures. With the Microsoft Business Intelligence solution, Zara is not only saving time and ensuring data integrity, it is getting the 360⁰ view of the business it needs to make informed decisions.