The Sixth IBM NZ Business Partner Awards: Smarter Analytics

Category Winner: CDP

By Reseller News Staff, Auckland | Tuesday, 30 October 2012
CDP Group was the Smarter Analytics category winner in the sixth IBM business partner awards.

The partner won for a project that helped client Firth Industries reduce its carbon footprint.



Firth Industries, a division of Fletcher, with assistance from CDP, implemented an IBM Cognos Business Intelligence application to make operational improvements, changing organisational behaviour and reducing energy and carbon emissions.

Firth prior to this project was capturing energy consumption data from their various sites and preparing spreadsheets manually on a monthly basis. They wanted to be able to drill down into that data and, ultimately, prepare reports that quantified CO2 emissions per unit of production.

“This is the type of project that excites us,” says Craig Simpson, senior account manager at CDP. “The vision came from Firth…they real­ised that they had the tools and data required to build the solution. All they needed was the tech­nical help to pull it all together. Firth outlined their ideas to one of our top consultants…Barry Keats…and he whiteboarded the solution more or less on the fly. Firth gave the go-ahead and Barry created the application.”

The project helped Firth reduce CO2 emissions by 5 percent. The company has a more in-depth understanding of consumption patterns and is in a better position to manage energy usage since implementation. Firth has also been able to realise savings by improving efficiencies.

“The real value on a project like this is the ROI,” says Simpson. “We were able to bring the project to completion within a month and already Firth has reduced their energy consumption. Because we knew their data and business driv­ers – based on a long relationship – we were able to deliver a cost-effective solution.”

CDP was recognised for this project at an awards event on October 18 in Auckland, hosted in association with Reseller News.