Case: Johannes Fog
Johannes Fog goes from data to insight
“Inact Now makes it incredibly easy for us to gain insights from our data”
-Interview with Business Partner at Johannes Fog, Louise Dahlenborg Starup
Highlights
The challenge
At Johannes Fog, the issue wasn’t a lack of data.
They had already been working with Inact for many years, but as their needs evolved, it became increasingly clear how big a difference it makes to move from reporting to real action.
As the company required greater transparency in supplier negotiations, better insight into assortment composition, and a more critical view of which products actually sold, the focus shifted to making data drive better decisions across the business.
The solution
With Inact Now, Johannes Fog gained a tool that made it easier to analyze the business and turn insights into action. Together with Inact, they have:
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Created greater transparency in supplier negotiations.
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Established a task force that connects departments and ensures a shared understanding of business priorities.
- Gained access to reports that allow them to look into specific product groups, items, and issues.
The result
The work has helped create a healthier and more attractive assortment with a stronger focus on profitability. They have:
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Reduced the number of SKUs from 25,000 to 14,000.
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Created a strong interplay between Inact Now and BI, enabling tasks to be solved faster and with a clear purpose.
- Established a shared language across the organization.
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Inact Now: from data insight to decisions
At Johannes Fog, the collaboration with Inact began nearly nine years ago.
Back then, the focus was mainly on getting data in place and starting to measure.
Focus was less on challenging what was being measured — or how the data should be used in practice. The primary goal was to gain better overview.
Today, that has changed.
With Inact Now, it has become much easier to gain data insights — and more importantly, to turn that insight into concrete business decisions.
The initial focus was on the assortment. Johannes Fog wanted better control over products being phased out, creating a healthier assortment. Later, it became clear that the same needed to be applied to their supplier negotiations.
They needed to move beyond general discussions about categories and suppliers — and instead focus on specific product groups, specific items, and concrete priorities.
This changed the way they started asking questions:
Do we actually sell these products?
Do they generate enough turnover?
Are they truly profitable?
What does the supplier mix actually look like?
It sounds simple.
But that’s exactly where business development often begins — when questions become more specific, and answers become actionable.
A deliberate interplay between Inact and BI
Today, Johannes Fog uses Inact Now alongside their BI solution.
But instead of letting the two tracks operate separately, they have built an internal task force with participants from procurement, BI, and product data management. Here, new tasks are discussed jointly to determine how and where they are best solved.
This has made a significant difference.
Because the question is not just whether a task can be solved.
It’s also where it makes the most sense to solve it — and how quickly a solution is needed.
This has created a shared language, and internal discussions between BI and Inact Now have become less rigid.
Instead of focusing on ownership, the focus is now on what is best for the business.
"We recently had a challenge about how to identify items that suddenly drop in performance. It turned out that Inact already had a solution to this problem because they had seen the same issue with other customers."
Louise Dahlenborg Starup
Business Partner
Louise also highlights that everyone now has a voice, and both pros and cons are openly discussed.
This points to something important in the collaboration:
The value is not only in the tool — but also in the experience behind it.
It’s not just data.
It’s a shorter path from problem to solution.
When insights are actually used in daily operations
One thing is achieving a shared language.
But at Johannes Fog, it’s crucial that the solutions they build actually work in practice.
There is little value in reports and KPIs if they don’t support the people who use them daily.
This is where Inact Now has made a practical difference.
"That’s something unique about Inact – your sincerity and a focus on your customers."
Louise Dahlenborg Starup
Business Partner
A concrete example is their work with clothing items under a specific assortment code. Previously, this required manual reporting and heavy preparation. Now, Louise can quickly pull an updated report, as the data in Inact Now is updated daily.
It may sound like a small improvement.
But it’s exactly this type of change that transforms everyday work — when something that used to be time-consuming and manual suddenly becomes fast and usable.
As Louise explains, a colleague was genuinely surprised by how quickly it could be done. They simply weren’t used to that level of efficiency.
And that highlights something critical:
When access to insight becomes easier, it also becomes easier to act in time.
A partnership built around the business
One of the things Johannes Fog highlights most is that Inact doesn’t just think in terms of product and platform — but in terms of the business.
For example, Louise describes a situation where the company needed to use data in another software solution. Inact contributed with input on how to approach it to achieve the best result — not based on what suited Inact best, but on what made the most sense for Johannes Fog’s overall setup.
"You adapt to our pace, and for me it has been really important that what we do is done properly and that we don’t just add new things before the other things are properly anchored."
Louise Dahlenborg Starup
Business Partner
That’s what makes the collaboration more than just a system choice.
When Johannes Fog shifts focus, they use their Business Reviews with Inact to discuss how to reach the best solution — not just the fastest.
And that matters.
Because the goal is not to launch more initiatives.
The goal is to ensure that what is started is properly anchored and actually works in practice.
Not just more insights.
But help to use them — at a pace the business can sustain.
About Johannes Fog
Johannes Fog has been selling building materials since 1920 and today consists of a Home & Design House located in Lyngby, Denmark, and nine timber yards and construction centers across Zealand.
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The solution is for you if you:
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Want to prioritize customers, products, and suppliers based on actual business value
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Want to connect strategy and operations so decisions support the core business
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Need insight and overview so you can make better and faster decisions