Client: One of the world’s largest and fastest-growing FMCG companies, managing more than 100 brands in over 50 countries. This client is frequently referred to as one of the best performing corporations in the world.
The client is the global leader in a large category. It has made several large acquisitions. Many of the acquired companies had also grown by acquisition. As a result, there were numerous heterogeneous systems throughout the organisation. Information was in silos, difficult to access and analyse. True insight into business performance was difficult to get, slow and expensive.
Task:
a) Data cleansing is a major problem for clients. r4apps POC connected SAP systems and proved effectiveness in a few days.
b) r4apps initial engagement was to connect to the myriad of heterogeneous systems to speed up the financial close. More importantly, once r4apps is connected to the systems it easily accesses any of the data and transactions, making highly valuable insights possible. The client is running the POC using r4apps to get financial and operational insight years ahead of when it would be available from the client’s systems consolidation programme.
c) Global brand profitability reporting and sales analytics are key priorities and we’re holding back until the earlier POCs are completed.
Client Value: Faster close with headcount reduced by 95%; Global Product & Channel profitability years ahead of previous plan; significantly improved data integrity. Quickly connected multiple SAP instances, then other ERPs to evaluate data integrity issues and remediate.
Key differentiators: The client’s next best alternative was multiple monthly Excel downloads, individual analyses with different source systems and business owners for every download. This would take significantly longer, potentially have little consistency in approach, errors in spreadsheets and lead to filtered or biased insights.
Further uses at this client: The client plans to use r4apps to support their sourcing analytics, their zero-based budgeting programme as well as marketing and sales strategy.
