Perfetti Van Melle, known for brands such as Mentos, Smint and Chupa Chups, supplies candy and chewing gum to more than 150 countries worldwide. To compare actual results with budgets, the multinational wanted to implement a more integrated business OLAP tool. With SAP (BPC), Finext supported this and provided more insights and speed.
Need for a better budget solution
Siebe van Geel, Sales Controller Export & Travel at Perfetti Van Melle, says, "I realized there had to be a more practical way to set up the budget and final estimates than calculating them in Excel." He is the self-proclaimed "instigator" of the project to improve the budget process. "I spontaneously jumped on board because the current BLX planning system was starting to show significant performance problems," says Christina Verdonck, Sales Controller Benelux at Perfetti Van Melle.
"Sales and marketing can see top-line where deviations from targets are occurring, then zoom in to the lowest level."
Combined action of IT and Finance
This resulted in a pilot for a new business planning tool, in which IT was involved from the beginning. "As IT, we assisted Finance in decisions around the technical choices in the project. For this we mainly focused on the back-end," says Casper Nieuwenhuizen, Team Lead Business Intelligence & Application Development at Perfetti Van Melle. "One of the goals of the new solution is to embed the knowledge of different people in the system.""During the pilot, we carefully examined whether SAP BPC met Perfetti Van Melle's requirements," says Maud Vermeulen of Sonum International. As lead consultant, she was closely involved in the design and international rollout of the planning model. Siebe: "An important requirement was compatibility; is it possible to upload from SAP and integrate with BI?"
Responsibility with the business
"A second goal is to place responsibility with the business owners; the salespeople," says Bart Hontelé of Perfetti Van Melle. "Now sales and marketing can see top-line where the deviations from the targets are, then zoom in to the lowest level. This gives a lot of insight. Moreover, we can immediately discuss the why question; what did I want to happen, what happened and why did this happen?" As Senior Sales Controller Benelux, Bart initially implemented the project in the Benelux. After moving to the UK, he wanted to start using it there as well. He has since rolled out the new solution in the UK as well. "As a company, we have the ambition to grow. To achieve this ambition, we need professional processes. The new scheduling solution enables us to create these by allowing us to use one system in different locations without depending on local systems," continued Bart. "We want to create one version of the truth within one process. SAP BPC supports this."
"We wanted to create one version of the truth within one process. SAP supports this."
"By using SAP BPC, Perfetti Van Melle has a tool that integrates with SAP BI," says Maud. "In the beginning, this required more effort because the reporting data had to come from different BI environments. However, the advantage is that BPC already uses one environment." Casper: "It was the right strategic choice to build everything in one environment and complement it with SAP HANA. It greatly improved the performance and manageability of the model."
Co-Build
The project was characterized by the large amount of input from the users. "Both key-users and end-users were able to contribute ideas about the solution, allowing the user to extract as much information as possible from the tool," says Gert-Jan van den Berg, consultant at Finext. As sister companies, Sonum International and Finext regularly join forces in international Performance Management implementations. During the implementation, the international company opted for a "co-build" approach. This approach involves key users in building the model. "The models are set up with the approval and help of the end-users," says Gert-Jan. "There are advantages and disadvantages," says Bart. "The disadvantage is that it takes time, the advantage is that you build up a lot of knowledge during the project. I would definitely choose it again." The end users learned a lot. Siebe: "I was shocked when I first looked at a logic script. But because I helped build the model myself, I now know where to look when adjustments are needed."
Choices
During a planning implementation, the goal is to keep the model as simple as possible. "There is always the temptation to use and exploit all the technical capabilities of the new solution," says Maud. "However, this is not always wise." "We want to keep complexity low and performance high," agrees Casper. The industry in which Perfetti Van Melle operates also influences the model. "It is important for us to analyze the impact of promotional and regular volumes," says Christina. "Promotional campaigns must be carefully evaluated: what are we giving away and what are the revenues?" "These promotional campaigns affect volumes and margins," says Bart. Maud: "It's great to see that Perfetti Van Melle not only looks at costs, but also at returns. The pricing model helps to look at both.""The power of the BPC data is in the output. Using the extensive reporting and analysis capabilities of SAP BI gives the company even more advantages."
25 times faster
Stakeholders are positive about the results of the new scheduling solution. "It's a multidimensional model that has the potential to create millions of records," Bart says. "SAP HANA really helped improve performance when we ran into serious performance issues. We see the use of SAP HANA throughout the organization as one of the reasons for implementing SAP BPC centrally. It took a lot of patience and understanding of the bigger picture, fortunately we are now seeing the results," says Casper. "We are glad we made this choice. Calculations are 25 times faster; we went from 45 minutes to a few minutes.
"The power of SAP data is in the output."
The power of SAP
Siebe: "We can now easily involve people in the budget process. Before, we used to send e-mails back and forth. Now, for example, the sales department has access to price lists and volumes. This allows them to supplement prices or volumes themselves." Christina: "In addition, the error rate has gone down. Now I know it's going to be correct as soon as I enter my parameters and data. Using Excel is still a risk."
"The power of SAP data is in the output," says Bart. The data resides in a data warehouse linked to BI. "Using the extensive reporting and analysis capabilities of SAP BI gives the company even more advantages."
