Pernod Ricard
"BusinessObjects offers very strong information analysis and presentation capability. Most Excel lovers are eager to move to BusinessObjects. Right now, we have more than 400 users across 10 business units in Asia, covering sales, marketing, finance and logistics functions using the solution everyday. As BusinessObjects is our missioncritical information delivery platform, we expect a growth in the number of users of another 15% in the coming fiscal year."
Mr. Poon Wan Lung
Manager of Data-warehouse and Special Projects
Pernod Ricard Asia
Challenge
Business users too dependent on IT department
Pernod Ricard is the world's number two in wines and spirits. This history begins in December 1974 when Pernod and Ricard were still long-standing competitors in the French anise-based spirits market. Nevertheless, they decided to join forces to win foreign markets. Since its creation in 1975, Pernod Ricard has undergone sustained rapid growth, development and acquisition, building on its portfolio of Premium brands and its presence on every continent.
In order to protect local roots of each market, Pernod Ricard has adopted a decentralized management structure - one that has become the Group's hallmark. It allows for taking decisions as close to the consumer as possible, empowering and motivating its teams and strengthening the Group's entrepreneurial culture.
Approach
Timely access to data and make timely decisions
As a multicultural region, Pernod Ricard Asia has to deal with various market demands. Decentralized approach allows Pernod Ricard Asia to react differently in each country with appropriate business models. As a result, business analysis over these areas varies frequently in terms of seasonal parameters, distribution models, management perspectives as well as sales figures and inventory movements. Therefore, effectiveness on information support becomes one of the biggest challenges to Regional IT in terms of man-hour cost when just a very small team has to respond to diverse requests from every single department. In addition, information consolidation means the need to handle multi-Asian languages in a single system.
Pernod Ricard Asia improves information delivery and decision-making by adopting BusinessObjects 6.5 as BI platform of its data-warehouse solution.
"The deployment of BusinessObjects changes the role of our people positively. Business users can now focus on KPI analysis instead of reporting construction. And ITs are released from reporting services to other value-added services such as project implementation and system improvement." said Mr. Poon Wan Lung, Manager of Data-warehouse and Special Projects of Pernod Ricard Asia.
Why Business Objects?
Strong information analysis and presentation capability
"BusinessObjects offers very strong information analysis and presentation capability. Most Excel lovers are eager to move to BusinessObjects. It means to the company a possibility of eliminating lots of routine report preparation work for the team. Its patent semantic layer concept, which converts technical database schema into user-familiar business terms, provides a very good architecture for Data-warehouse/BI solution. We had been undergoing major system changes in recent years (Y2K, fiscal year change, business re-organization, company acquisitions...). Despite of the complexity of enhancement required and the tight project schedule, our Data-warehouse/BI solution has always proved to be highly adaptive to these changes, without project delay," said Mr. Poon.
Result
Business users can construct their own KPI reports quickly
Users can compose their own reports and perform tailor-made analysis
With BusinessObjects, managers can access timely information and formulate strategies. Since the tool is also easy to use, business analysts are also less dependent on IT department so that they can construct their own KPI reports quickly. This enables them to be highly correlated to relevant business performance changes. For operations and finance people, BusinessObjects is particularly useful during month-end closing period where information consolidation requirement is time-critical.
Improve staff productivity with significant cost savings and reliable management reports
BusinessObjects' deployment also contributes to significant cost savings. Against any benchmark, within or outside of the industry, we believe, Pernod Ricard Asia is maintaining a very low IT cost level. Time being saved from reporting services is put on projects implementation and system improvement. With the replacement of manually constructed Excel management templates by BusinessObjects, numbers received by Senior Management and Operations always tally.
"Our Data-warehouse / BI solution started in 1998 with initially less than 20 BusinessObjects users. But now, we have more than 400 users across 10 business units in Asia, covering sales, marketing, finance and logistics functions. As BusinessObjects is our mission-critical information delivery platform, we expect a growth in the number of users of another 15% in the coming fiscal year," added Mr. Poon.
Quick Facts
- Industry:
Spirits and Wines Distribution - Business Pain
Regional business users were very dependent on IT department to provide timely information and data for daily use. However, given the small IT team, it was impossible to handle all the requests from users everyday. - Why Business Objects?
BusinessObjects offers very strong information analysis and presentation capability. Most Excel lovers are eager to move to BusinessObjects. It means to the company a possibility of eliminating lots of routine report preparation work for the team. - Business Objects products and services:
BusinessObjects Web Intelligence