Brands for everybody
MBG International is a leading manufacturer and global partner of the food and beverages industry. With an annual turnover of almost USD $300 million, MBG’s brands are found in over 50 countries. Approximately 200 employees provide for over 50 key-account centers such as duty free, hotels, and clubs, 3,000 beverage wholesalers, and 12,000 gas stations, plus over 80,000 customers from the food and catering retail sector
“With Jedox, we now control our reporting and sales planning efficiently and we even get thirsty for more data!”
–Oliver Dammann, Sales Controlling, MBG International Premium Brands
Challenges
Data flood – Insight drought
Every day, MBG’s Controlling department prepares vast customer and sales data, to report key figures to the Sales department, to immediately respond to market changes, supply clients promptly, and identify untapped sales potential. MBG had previously manually extracted customer and sales data from the CRM, but low data-quality and multiple sources of truth made this task arduous, plaguing MBG Sales Controller Oliver Dammann’s daily work:
“All data was first extracted from the system with great e ort. We were only able to consolidate it after it had been checked. Since identical articles and cost centers had divergent names in the source databases, data had to be constantly standardized and validated, which resulted in recurrent, extremely high expenditure on a monthly basis!”
Data was consolidated entirely in Excel. This was overwhelmed when complex reports linking multiple workbooks (100MB files) flooded the system. Modeling the enterprise’s organizational structure’s complexity was increasingly time-consuming. Analyzing and acting on data was a secondary task, as the deluge of data extraction became overwhelming.
With MBG projected to reach turnover close to USD $700 million by 2020, they needed a new, refreshing approach to planning to combat the insight drought.
High performance, not high cost
MBG needed a high-performance solution that kept Excel’s benefits whilst eliminating its drawbacks. MBG needed to report faster and more flexibly, to write-back plan, and consolidate data instantly. Jedox met all these requirements at a compelling price point. For Oliver Dammann, the choice was clear.
“We evaluated BI providers and found Jedox to be the best solution in terms of look & feel, its modular structure and clear-cut user focus.”
Week one – Automated planning
From day one, the MBG project team work quickly and effectively with the IT department to design the Jedox model and intuitive Excel interfaces. Together, with Jedox consultant Arne Jehle, MBG develops an integrated planning application delivering sales targets to each region, now the source of national sales and distribution reporting.
MBG has a SQL Server-based ERP that Jedox can connects and draw data from immediately. Within the first days, Arne and the MBG team automate data extraction, transformation, and load, and design the user planning templates. Oliver Dammann was astonished at implementation speed in the face of the data deluge:
“Implementing the first planning solution only took a few days! And we now have a tool we can use for fast and efficient planning of all our key figures.”
Solution
Advantages
Week two – Automated national reporting
Jedox optimizes national reporting, creating one version of the truth. Jedox Academy training empowers the MBG Controlling team to create a revamped, well-structured solution independently within a fortnight. They’ve transformed their monthly reporting.
Though the approach is completely revitalized, the team continues to use their established Excel reports, with all data now live from Jedox. Jedox enables MBG power-users to independently adjust and extend these reports in seconds. MBG became Jedox experts, using existing Excel skills.
Seasonal data analysis all year round
MBG builds an integrated planning & reporting solution for international sales management in days. Jedox empowers MBG to drill-down and across data at new levels of detail, from cost centers down to individual ZIP/postcodes, to across sales channels. The plan data is also shared to other sales applications.
Plans apply seasonal changes automatically to months, making each season’s targets available at each article and customer level. When controlling sets new targets, power users can immediately see new targets at the fi nest levels of detail. Oliver Dammann sees the huge steps forward MBG have made with Jedox on a daily basis:
“Jedox has massively accelerated and simplified our planning process. Expenditure is down to at least a third of what it used to be!”
Why Jedox?
A steady flow of business-wide insight
Automated sales and distribution reporting has increased Controlling’s efficiency. Jedox not only compares actuals with target values, it calculates deviations and visualizes them and makes them available across the departments. Dammann recognizes how Jedox improves collaboration and cooperation throughout MBG:
“Important data is no longer stored on any unspecified computer. Jedox enables employees to get fast access to relevant data across the organization for the first time.”
Global beverage industry insight
Assured by the quick results Jedox has already delivered, MBG commences a third Jedox project in the following months. Now, indirect customer sales are managed through Jedox Web. Jedox consolidates millions of data points, so MBG can collect manual sales entries, manage invoices, and conduct analyses around the globe. Jedox data is used to manage the financing of MBG customers.
Transparency
While the Jedox model is sophisticated, MBG’s Controlling Department own the solution, and make regular adjustments independently. Jedox’s intuitiveness makes the team’s work easier, says Oliver Dammann:
“Jedox is not a black box at all, which is a huge advantage. Data streams, dependencies, and permissions are transparent at all times. We configure the system on our own, making adjustments at will without requiring any external support. “
With Jedox, MBG have eliminated Excel’s drawbacks whilst preserving the familiar user-friendly interface. MBG are now inspired and empowered to push Business Intelligence and Analytics to new limits. Because Jedox integrates the powerful statistics library R, the team have endless complex analysis possibilities and the Controlling Department will use Jedox for increased geo-analyses, giving valuable insight into sales regions.
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