Overview

» Balanced Scorecard Project at a Worldwide Telecommunications Company
» Integrated Controlling Solution for a Production Company
» Enterprise Controlling Solution at a leading Food Producer
» Innovative Web Reporting at an Industrial Enterprise
» Integrated LOF (Project) and Financial Planning at an Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Company
» Modelling Complex Planning Structures in a Banking Corporation
»   Application supporting the implementation of quarterly financial statements and the creation of business plans for a project management organisation (building projects) and their subsidiaries

Balanced Scorecard Project at a Worldwire Telecommunications Company

Business Pain
Due to enormous cost pressure dictated by international competition, the manufacturing processes had to be continously improved and streamlined. The company needed a consistent, enterprise-wide performance measurement system (BSC) to gain insight into the performance and progress of the production units across all locations wordwide.

Customer Requirements
An easy-to-use, web-based performance measurement system (BSC) that supports a cause/activity approach and that could be deployed in all locations worldwide as the basis for performance evaluation.

cubus Solution
BEST (Business Excellence Scorecard Tool) based on Cubus cubus outperform BSC with customer-specific performance indicators and analytics

cubus outperform solution for production and manufacturing planning

Benefits
Production locations can now be compared worldwide. All production and operating processes are continuously monitored and improved to find a more cost-effective, higher quality and quicker way to meet customer demands in the mobile telecommunications market.

• One consistent database
• Flexible changes
• Simplified managment of  the individual factories
• Permanent availabilty of up-to-the-minute information on performance indicators
• Wide-spread utilisation und high adoption

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Integrated Controlling Solution for a Production Company

Business Pain
Five years ago, the corporate controlling department of this customer was so frustrated with using a relational database and Excel interface that they initiated the implementation of the new, integrated controlling solution cubus outperform including multi-dimensional database Oracle Essbase.

• Strong increase in requirements due to a value-oriented business management cycle
• A growing consolidation scope and various segment views in a matrix organisation led to higher complexity and an increasing need for alignment
• Growing workload but decreasing time frames
• Increase in requirements for quality and relevante of content
• Capacity bottlenecks
• Lack of speed and flexibility

Customer Requirements

• Implementation of a tailor-made performance management model that reflected the company's culture and value system for lasting impact
• Fortification of a holistic business and financial management approach
• Operationalisation of aggregated metrics
• Securing the long-term business independence and continuity of the family owned enterprise

cubus Solution
Enterprise-wide business performance management platform. A structured, transparent database provides the foundation for worldwide business planning. The management consolidation and comprehensive reporting connect the international locations with headquarters. cubus outperform BSC monitors the causes of changes as well as the impact of actions taken.

Benefits

• Standardised processes that are available worldwide
• Delivery of pre-defined logic and busines models
• Data is collected, consolidated and re-used
• Consistent, pre-defined metrics e.g. EVA metrics tree
• Report generation and distribution worldwide
• Ad-hoc analysis of all data
• Timely identification of new opportunities and potential problem areas
• Capabilities to perform simulations/projections

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Enterprise Controlling Solution at a Leading Food Producer

Business Pain
The existing, SAP R/3 based Excel solution had become too cumbersome to support the complex planning process. The customer urgently needed more flexibility particularly for sales and marketing planning. Additional SAP software was not able to meet all the requirements in the given timeframe.

Customer requirements

• Speedy implementation
• The comprehensive, detailed and supra-regional sales planning had to be completed in an even shorter timeframe
• As there usually were a lot of changes during the planning phase, the new solution had to be highly flexible
• Rolling forecasts
• Sales and revenue planning including/up to operating results
• Cost center and human resources planning
• Metrics cockpit for the daily use by management and sales
• Financial planning

cubus solution
Enterprise Controlling based on Oracle Essbase with pre-defined business content that was customised to match the customer's business model. Step-by-step implementation of the above mentioned customer requirements.

Benefits
cubus outperform improved numerous processes. The planners perticularly like the insight, the improved simulations and the speed in which adjustment can be made. The decentralised capture of planning data is particularly efficient. The persons in charge can edit individual plans and targets. Once they are happy with what they have and the entries have been validated, the plans are combined centrally. This process eliminates tiresome further enquiries and subsequent corrections. cubus outperform offers much more flexibility and is signigicantly faster than the former Excel solution. Furthermore, cubus outperform provides top-down allocations, a functionality that had not been available in the past. The planning process is now significantly faster than with the previous solution.

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Innovative Web Reporting at an Industrial Enterprise

Business Pain
Due to acquisitions the customer used multiple controlling systems at the same time. There was no uniform, structured reporting (legal views). An ever-increasing number of views made the standard reporting extremely complex. Paper reports were still very prominent. Providing a growing variety of  views on similar data increased the number of reports so much that they failed to deliver on the objective of a single management report.

Customer Requirement
Innovative web reporting for top and middle management

cubus Solution
The decentralised reporting evolved into a flexible corporate Executive Information System (EIS). A harmonised enterprise data warehouse was built to secure reliable data and data adoption. This data is used for management concepts. The solution is based on IBM COGNOS Executive Viewer in combination with a content management system.

Benefits

• Higher quality with standardised views
• Allows management to quickly react to challenges
• Significant time savings, faster month-end closing
• Requires no validation as the solution is based on a central SAP BW data base (no manipulation possible)
• Thanks to offline viewing the paper reporting has been as good as abolished
• Flexible layers in standard reports
• Ad-hoc analysis
• Combination of information in form of a cockpit
• Simple handling and intuitive use
• Availabiltiy of standardised external views - known as "Financial Summary" - at all times

Integrated LOF (Project) and Financial Planning at an Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Company

Business Pain
The organisation was very unhappy with their existing system. They were incapable to include important information like the impact of delays, cost changes or the forecasted production output in their corporate planning.

The systems for LOF (Life of Field) planning and corporate planning were completely separate entities.

The persons responsible for the LOFs performed the LOF planning while the controlling department planned the financial aspects (like P&L, balance sheet, etc.). Transferring and mapping this data was difficult at best, if not impossible.

This lead to the following problems:

• The users had to wait quite a long time before they could analyse the impact of changes in the LOF.
• Before the analysts could evaluate the profitability of concessions and E&P projects based on external parameters like oil price or exchange rates, the data had to be manually compared and adjusted.
• Simulations like what-if analyses required a huge effort and were only provided when they were of general interest.

Customer Requirement

• Integrated - One single system to support the management of the LOFs. Automatic and timely transfer of the generated information to the financial planning application.
• Flexible – Capabilities to perform budgeting as well as forecasting at various intervals during the fiscal year.
• Versatile - Capture and comparison of multiple planning scenarios plus simulation of assumptions (like best, worst, real).
• Multi-currency - Data capture in local currency with subsequent conversion into corporate currency.
• Comprehensive - Support for management reporting and ad hoc analysis.

Easy to understand – An intuitive system that the users can maintain and enhance themselves.

cubus Solution

• Integrated cubus solution offering modules for LOF planning, cost and revenues planning, and transfer into P&L, balance sheet and cash flow.
• Management consolidation (intercompany elimination)
• Version and simulation management
• Standard reports (MIS)

Benefits

• Web-based access
• All information (LOF and financial data) is held centrally and can be analysed locally
• Combining the two systems facilitates communication and improves understanding on all operational levels including management
• Simulating multiple what-if scenarios boosts decision quality
• The customer can adjust and enhance his solution without relying on external support

Modelling Complex Planning Structures in a Banking Corporation

Business Pain

• As the bank had grown in size and complexity planning based on Excel spreadsheets had outgrown its usefulness.
• The current process does not offer sufficient support to track company targets.
• An additional forecast is needed to make budgeting more relevant to the controlling and management process.

Customer Requirement

• A more focused approach to secure operating profit by fine-tuning objectives and by establishing a direct link to activity planning and monitoring
• Reduce complexity and costs with an IT solution
• Increased flexibility and prognosis

cubus Solution

• Integrated planning system for budgeting, forecasting and medium-term planning including
  • Cost driver-based planning of personnel and personnel costs
  • Cost planning
  • Investment planning
  • Revenue-based / margin-based planning
• Entering only a few figures in an easy-to-use interface starts the comprehensive and complex calculations of KPIs and scenarios
• Differentiation between head office and subsidiaries
• Planning of managed assets und credit volume

Benefits

• Users are not “aware” of data complexity
• Shortened processing time and higher flexibility
• Increased transparency and analytical capabilities
• Improved communication
• Focusing resources on value-added activities

Application supporting the implementation of quarterly financial statements and the creation of business plans for a project management organisation (building projects) and their subsidiaries

Business Pain
The customer used a complex Excel-based planning application that combined information of various responsibilities in multiple versions and formats. This consolidation process was extremely time consuming and error-prone. The versions of each planner differed dramatically and it was near impossible to provide consistent data quality.

Processing multiple planning cycles and creating comprehensive analyses was extremely difficult.

Customer Requirement

• Improve quality
  • Eliminate errors
  • Maximise analysis time
• Provide flexibility and transparency
• Save time / simplify the process
• Introduce an intuitive user interface
  • Familiar user experience (similar look and feel as trusted systems)
  • High user acceptance
• Create a system to handle user access rights

cubus Solution

• An application that supports the implementation of quarterly financial statements and the creation of business plans
• Planning of project costs, revenues and investments
• Multi-level versioning process
• Automatic management process

Benefits

• Efficient, meaningful and visual analysis (standard / ad hoc)
• Improved monitoring of results
• High recognition value, as processes, analyses and maps are displayed in a similar fashion
• Authorisation concept

Increased flexibility due to the fast and easy change/adjustment of logic/presentation

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