Qlik Gold Client® transforms processes for Spanish food and beverage giant

If you’re responsible for IT at one of Spain’s leading food and beverage companies, having a technology ally that can deliver solutions when most needed is essential.

This is the case for dairy product specialist Calidad Pascual, which has pioneered cutting-edge developments since its foundation in 1969. Among other industry advances, it introduced Tetra Brik packaging to the Spanish market and has developed an advanced ultra-pasteurization process. The company has since expanded operations to include juices, soft drinks, tortillas and water, among other products, as well as venturing into the hospitality and catering industries.

Large volumes of data

The company’s success and expansion led to significant growth in demands on its IT, especially when processing and understanding data.

As its data resources grew, several company departments began to experience difficulties. The financial auditing function required confidentiality through encrypted information, while in HR, high volumes of data were processed manually, resulting in delays, potential errors and, ultimately, rising costs.

The company’s need for up-to-date information was also limited by data sitting in multiple SAP environments all requiring separate processes. To access this data, copies had to be made across all the environments involved, from quality assurance to production and development, creating issues when it was time to perform backups. Instead of only accessing the data, everything contained in a particular machine needed to be moved. As a result, teams had to spend at least two days carrying out backups, followed by a full week to organize the data.

Another affected environment was production. When an issue arose with a document, it was only detected when other departments – such as quality assurance or development – tried to replicate it. Support teams were also often unable to replicate documents because they were so dependent on both specific programs and data. In some cases, development team members had to enter the production environment, a process that could reduce optimization times by 80%.

As a result, data updates were only performed annually, and Calidad Pascual had to expand its development and quality assurance environments to match the resulting large data volumes and increase memory capacities at their destinations. This involved significant investment in new hardware.

Qlik Gold Client’s data transformation features ensure Calidad Pascual meets key data protection requirements, with sensitive data kept isolated from the development and quality assurance environments.

Ambitious solutions for ambitious projects

With several innovative new projects in progress, Calidad Pascual’s IT team took the opportunity to suggest a solution that would significantly improve processes across the business.

The solution was Qlik Gold Client, which improves data availability, security and quality in non-production SAP environments, thereby increasing developer productivity while ensuring data integrity and reducing storage requirements without downtime.

Selective data replication is now possible without having to back up the system’s entire history, and replicas are restricted and effective.

Thanks to the company’s pioneering vision and positive experience with QlikView® and Qlik Sense®, the decision to roll out Qlik Gold Client was quick and easy. It also delivered key benefits to the business.

The first was the detection of incidents related to documents or clients, which are resolved through replication in a non-production environment. With Qlik Gold Client, replicas can be created in quality assurance or development within just five to ten minutes. In environments with large data volumes, selective replication can be carried out without having to back up the system’s entire history. It also enables Calidad Pascual to create periodic replicas for each environment using current and optimized data.

Additionally, thanks to selective data replication, teams can work on ongoing projects between development and production environments without being affected by the backup.

The benefits of Qlik Gold Client spread quickly across the company. In the HR department, improved data handling means restriction levels for payroll or personal information can be configured in the development and quality assurance environments, and access to sensitive data can be restricted as necessary.

Qlik Gold Client: secure and effective

Qlik Gold Client’s capabilities have quickly delivered other key security improvements. Much of the information handled by Calidad Pascual is very sensitive, so meeting international data protection standards is critical. Qlik Gold Client’s data transformation features prevent sensitive information from being leaked from the development and quality assurance environments.

Another environment that has benefited significantly is production, where critical incidents can now be identified and addressed promptly. As a result, tasks that previously took up to three days can now be completed in just a few hours.

Easy implementation with quick results

Implementing solutions that resolve complex issues can often require in-depth specialist knowledge. But in the case of Qlik Gold Client this doesn’t apply; its intuitive, straightforward display makes it easy to operate.

Qlik Gold Client was implemented with vital support from Qlik, who helped to achieve effective and realistic schedules. Parameters were established and a solution was configured in just one week, while specific staff training for each area also simplified the implementation process. In an industry that is constantly evolving, this ease of adoption and agile delivery of information to users have proved to be vital differentiators.