V&S Group, the Stockholm-based maker of Absolut Vodka, is implementing Information Builders Inc.'s WebFocus software as the company's corporatewide business-intelligence and reporting system. By June, as many as 300 to 400 employees are expected to be using the software for reporting and analyzing sales, marketing, supply-chain management, and financial data, says CIO and VP of IT Goran Francke.

V&S also will use WebFocus to retrieve data from the company's Baan operational applications and load them into the company's data warehouse, which is based on Micosoft's SQL Server database. The WebFocus system will be a key component of V&S's business-intelligence center of excellence, Francke says.

IBI is expected to unveil the deal with V&S this week. The value of the contract has not been disclosed.

V&S evaluated a number of business-intelligence products, including those from Cognos Inc. and Business Objects SA, but found WebFocus to be "the strongest tool" because of its integration capabilities and ability to quickly build new reports, Francke says. The product's price/performance was also a factor, he adds.

V&S uses Cognos Enterprise Planning software for budget and sales-volume planning, and data from that system will be added to the data warehouse for analysis using WebFocus.

Francke expects the WebFocus system to be operational by the end of February, and the company has licenses for about 75 initial users. But as many as 300 to 400 people--out of the company's total 2,400 employees--could be using the system by June, he says.

In addition to manufacturing Absolut Vodka, V&S is a leading producer and distributor of wines and other alcoholic beverages in northern Europe and is one of the world's 10 largest international alcoholic beverage companies.