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CASE STUDY | FOOD MANUFACTURING | xP&A

Decision Inc. Rebuilds Poorly Configured

SAP Consolidation Solution.

Solution overview

Industry

Food Manufacturing

Solution

Group Reporting and Financial Consolidation with SAP BPC

Client

Greencore Group plc is a leading manufacturer of convenience foods. They supply a wide range of chilled, frozen, and ambient foods to some of the UK’s most successful retail and food services customers.

Requirement

The group wanted to opmtimise the use of their SAP BPC for consolidation and financial reporting. Thus making the strategic decision to re-build the solution.

Location

United Kingdom and Scotland

Results

Faster Data Loading

Quicker Report Pack for Yearend Stats

Faster Consolidation Calculation

 

Quick Input Forms Selections

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Quicker Consolidation of Plan X 12 Periods

Quicker budget Caculations X12 Periods

 

System Down-Time & Database Compression

 

Decision Inc. successfully completes the re-build of an SAP BPC Consolidation solution for Greencore plc. The rebuild of the solution focused on the standard deployment of core SAP BPC functions and establishing strong processes.

The project delivered significant improvements in process execution, together with a dramatic reduction in manual intervention.

The Client

Greencore Group plc. is a leading manufacturer of convenience foods.

Greencore supplies a wide range of chilled, frozen, and ambient foods to some of the most successful retail and food service customers in the UK. Greencore is headquartered in Dublin and is listed on the London Stock Exchange. Their total revenues exceed £1.3billion. Greencore is an employer of 13,000 people.

The Engagement with

decision inc.

The Decision Inc. Project Team have excellent knowledge of the SAP BPC product and this experience was invaluable in terms of understanding and diagnosing the issues we faced along with gaining knowledge of our business processes and then proposing how to remedy these problems to deliver a workable solution fit for purpose. The project team were very flexible and adapted well to work with Greencore IT project team. This collaboration helped to deliver a successful project that has been received by the business users extremely well.

– Rachel Bond, Finance Business Improvement Manager, Greencore plc

The Requirement

To optimise the use of SAP BPC for consolidation & financial reporting, the group made a strategic decision to re-build the solution.

The key deliverables were identified as:

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Optimised Consolidation and Translation calculations with native BPC functions

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Simplify and better automate data integration from source systems

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Streamlined business processes, utilising improved Input Forms with supporting calculations and informative In-Process Reports

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Re-designed budget and forecast process and templates to reduce the risk of data loss

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Reconfigured key dimensions, Flow, and Audit Trail and rationalised Scope and Currency

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A new Intercompany Matching Process

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Timely, easy to execute housekeeping tasks to optimise system performance without impacting system access and availability

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Re-development of Formal Reports and Report Packs

SAP Consolidation_Decision_Inc_UK

The Solution

A robust and performant financial reporting solution utilising SAP standard functionality, taking full advantage of the technology platform.

Tasks and processes can be executed in a timely fashion and users now have a high degree of trust in the system and the data.

The solution delivered the following benefits:

Optimisation of data-tables as required without taking the system offline

Reduced IT effort required to support the system

Reduced system down-time

Reduced time and effort in the production of month-end and year-end results.  (Please refer to improved performance indicators below)

Improved user experience through direct use of system front-end and training

Reduced reliance on manual controls

Minimised housekeeping activities for business users

Aligned the system configuration to match Greencore’s data requirements and utilise standard system functionality

The Result

The combination of a recognised consolidation technology platform (SAP BPC) and specialist BPC partner, Decision Inc., resulted in a heavily improved solution in-line with best practices & robust governance standards.

DATA LOADING

Loads in 30 seconds

as opposed to 5-6 minutes per site

REPORT PACK FOR YEAREND STATS

Runs in 30 seconds

as opposed to 15 minutes

CONSOLIDATION CALCULATION

Runs in 2 minutes

as opposed to 10 – 15 minutes

SYSTEM DOWN-TIME & DATABASE COMPRESSION

  • Optimises now run in 5 minutes as opposed to 35 – 40 minutes
  • Elimination of system down-time – Database can now be compressed without taking the system off-line, due to the use of standard system calculations
  • Reduction in frequency of database compression, due to use of standard system calculations
  • Instances of system down-time are exceptional rather than routine

INPUT FORMS SELECTIONS

Runs in less than 5 seconds

as opposed to 5 minutes

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CONSOLIDATION OF PLAN X12 PERIODS

Runs in 2 – 10 minutes

as opposed to 60 – 120 minutes

BUDGET CALCULATIONS X12 PERIODS

Runs in less than 30 seconds

as opposed to 10 – 20 minutes

SAP Consolidation_Decision_Inc_UK

The Impact of the solution delivered by decision inc.

Overall, I would say that the user experience has massively improved with the performance changes especially the refresh rate on reports and Input schedules used by the wider finance team.

– Paul Brennan, Group Consolidation Manager

at Greencore plc

SAP Consolidation_Decision_Inc_UK

The Engagement with

decision inc.

Decision Inc. used their knowledge of the Greencore business and the legacy SAP BPC configuration to deliver a vastly improved Consolidation system and delivered improvements across a variety of areas:

– Control: locking periods and data was not possible in the legacy system; this now works efficiently and includes auditability which supports our financial reporting processes.
– Validation: with the new configuration the system is automatically validating data coming from the ERP’s to ensure completeness and accuracy of mappings. This reduces the workload at period end. Users are guided, based on the error as to what the corrective actions are. This benefit allows business users to resolve issues with minimal input at Group Finance level.
– Reporting: legacy reports have been written using smarter techniques which allow the business to analyse the reporting more efficiently.
– Single Set-Up: Decision Inc. worked to reduce the administration of the system by leveraging SAP logic and standardising configuration such that we have a single set of rules for our Cashflow which can be followed more easily than the legacy system.

– Paul Brennan, Group Consolidation Manager

at Greencore plc

ABOUT DECISION inc.

As a global leader in information driven transformation with a core focus on the potential of data, the performance of intelligence and on our pursuit of progress, Decision Inc. leads the way in creating customer excellence.

Our expertise in technology and industry specialisations have enabled us to help companies around the world make better decisions faster.

Our emphasis on local excellence and global scale enables us to bring clients best of breed technology solutions that enable significant improvement whilst leveraging our Global Research and Innovation teams to accelerate the time to insight.

Our local consulting teams are experts in the implementation, support and execution of these solutions and work with our clients to deliver real results and improvement.

To find out more about our Consolidation & Financial Reporting solutions click here.

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