Express for budget: implementation of IBM Cognos Express in Harris CIS
Harris CIS automates planning and budgeting using IBM Cognos Express
"Harris CIS" is the Russian division of Barilla Group, the world leader in the production and sale of pasta and sauces and the European leader in the segment of confectionery. The company entered Barilla Group in 2002. At the moment, Harris CIS is a full cycle producer, spanning the development, production and sales of confectionery and bakery products at two factories in Solnechnogorsk and Ufa.
In the highly competitive Russian confectionery market, Harris CIS strives to perform its production activities in the most efficient way and provide additional competitive advantages to its products. The necessary tools for this are a detailed analysis and operational control of the production key indicators, allowing high-quality planning and forecasting of budgets, as well as the constructing financial and management reporting. Harris CIS turned to Odyssey Consulting Group, an international consulting company, with such a purpose.
The companies have repeatedly and successfully cooperated in the implementation of new corporate information system based on Microsoft Dynamics AX on the production complex of the enterprise, WMS-class system for the automation of the central warehouse of Harris CIS, so for the team of Odyssey Consulting Group the specifics of the customer's business processes were well known. To satisfy Harris CIS planning and budgeting needs, the specialists of Odyssey Consulting Group offered IBM Cognos Express product. This complex solution has all the necessary tools for multidimensional business analysis, planning, modeling of different scenarios, reporting and forecasting. It is worth noting that this project was one of the first implementations of IBM Cognos Expressfor Odyssey Consulting Group.
The solution was integrated with the ERP-system based on Microsoft Dynamics AX platform which had been previously created in Harris CIS. Before the start of the project the necessary processing and analysis processes which were based on Excel tables were not automated. The procedures were labor intensive but did not provide a sufficient degree of detailing of the analyzed budget indicators. As a result of the IBM Cognos Express implementation project, successfully completed by the Odyssey Consulting Group specialists, Harris CIS financial department employees can perform budget management including planning and forecasting processes more operatively and efficiently as well as almost completely refuse from labor-intensive manual data processing. In addition, Harris CIS specialists are able to create budgets and forecast possible indicators, taking into account various scenarios of market development in general and the business activity in particular. System users can simulate and test alternatives, as well as generate reports. For example, if it is a question of changing recipes of this or that commodity nomenclature, the cost of production of the next batch of such products will increase.
Planning is also conducted on the basis of the volume of sales in the current period, the cost of purchasing raw materials, logistics, and marketing campaigns. Specialists compare planned and actual figures and make appropriate forecasts, minimizing production risks. The basis for multidimensional analysis and strategic planning tasks solution are data downloaded from ERP-system. The IBM Cognos Express solution allows Harris CIS specialists to convert previously created Excel spreadsheets and conduct necessary analytical measurements including those for previous periods.
The project deadlines were very tight: the intense work on IBM Cognos Express implementation started at the end of May 2010 and was completed by the middle of September. IBM Cognos Express is notable for quick deployment and launch. The peculiarity of this implementation was the fact that customer's representatives provided the requirements specification, but didn't take part in the solution adjustment process. At the end of the IBM Cognos Express deployment project the employees of Harris CIS financial department were trained by Odyssey Consulting Group project team. The customer's specialists mastered the product features very quickly and greatly appreciated the simplicity and ease of its use.
Natalia Martinova, Senior Financial Analyst at Harris CIS comments on the results of the project: "The IBM Cognos Express solution fits perfectly into our business processes organization. The product facilitates the creation of more accurate forecasts, minimizes the potential for errors in planning, and allows us to analyze the data obtained in the context of many parameters".
