Challenges

• Reduce time needed to consolidate and compile financial reports across 11 varied businesses
• Enhance management reporting to gain a more real-time view of sales and performance data for multiple product lines and specific market segments, such as agricultural products, phosphates, starch, sugar, and veterinary supplies
• Enable business line managers in all Victoria Group AG companies to access and share real-time statistics on key performance indicators, such as product revenues, inventory management, manufacturing schedules, supplier performance, and logistics
• Track and monitor changing market conditions to ensure accurate, fact-based, and effective strategic decision-making
• Improve medium- and long-term forecasting to grow market share and capitalize on emerging markets and new business opportunities in the highly-competitive food product and animal feed industry

Solutions

• Replaced standalone, spreadsheet-based tools used by individual Victoria Group AD businesses with a single platform built on Oracle Essbase, to centralize financial and management reporting
• Utilized the multidimensional, online analytical processing capabilities of Oracle Essbase to build an enterprisewide analysis and performance management dashboard
• Enabled managers in regional operating units to input financial data in local currency directly into Oracle Essbase for central analysis and consolidation―eliminating the need for manual calculations and collations of multiple spreadsheets―to reduce errors and improve productivity of financial management teams
• Reduced financial reporting time from one week to two days, following period close
• Integrated intelligence from external sources―such as market surveys and industry analyst reports―into Oracle Essbase to gain greater insight into market, competitor, and customer behavior, enabling more sophisticated and proactive business planning
• Gained the ability to provide decision-makers with automated e-mail alerts based on key performance indicators―such as when sales figures deviate from forecasts―to enable agile, ongoing performance monitoring
• Used Oracle Essbase to automate data extraction from structured and unstructured sources—including an existing enterprise resource planning system, Excel files, and a data warehouse—into daily dashboards for management, tailored to the business intelligence needs of each cost-center manager
• Enabled cost-center managers and regional directors to gain a top-level view of near-real-time performance in five minutes via the daily dashboard, with rapid drill down capabilities at the regional level
• Gained timely visibility into sales for each customer, region, market segment, and individual product through Oracle Essbase modeling tools, to prioritize resources in line with strategic objectives and promptly identify underperforming areas
• Simplified data collection and reporting with the centralized platform to facilitate business expansion.
• Initiated deployment of Oracle Hyperion Planning to build a cross-functional, automated, and centralized platform to support consolidated planning and budgeting for all 11 Victoria Group companies, facilitating future growth and expansion

Why Oracle

The company chose Oracle Essbase for its superior capability in meeting the needs of an expanding organization, with many operating businesses, multiple currencies, and a growing portfolio of products in several market sectors.

“Oracle Essbase meets the needs of our innovative, progressive business model, while remaining easy to use,” said Vesna Petrović, controlling and project manager, Victoria Group AD. The advanced simulation capabilities enable us to respond and adjust our business in line with changes in the dynamic consumer goods sector. Additionally, the modular nature of Oracle Hyperion Planning means we can include additional planning and budgeting functionalities incrementally, as we need them.”

Partner

Oracle Partner Combis d.o.o. assisted with the Oracle Essbase implementation over a five-month period, managing every stage of the project. Combis d.o.o. worked closely with the Oracle presales team to gain a thorough understanding of Victoria Group AD’s requirements before implementation to ensure a successful roll out. Following the Oracle Essbase implementation, Combis d.o.o. worked with Victoria Group AD to implement Oracle Hyperion Planning across the enterprise.

“Combis d.o.o. managed every stage of the Oracle Essbase implemenation, from gap analysis and scope definition, to solution installation, configuration, and user training,” said Marko Mitić, IT director, Victoria Group AD. “It also helped us build and configure management dashboards and simulation models to improve insight into business lines. Its expertise helped us realize the value of Oracle Essbase to the fullest potential.”