Energy company CMAA cuts close time by 40% with Oracle
Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM helps CMAA abandon manual processes, improve data quality, and cut the company’s accounting close time.
“Oracle Fusion Cloud EPM brought us what is most important, which is the certainty that I am providing quality information without any manual intervention.”
Business challenges
Companhia Mineira do Açúcar e Álcool (CMAA) is one of the largest producers of ethanol, sugar, and bioelectricity in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.
With three processing plants in the state—two of its own and a third that is part of a joint venture—the company has mechanized all of its processes, from planting to harvest, with proprietary technology. At the beginning of 2020, the producer’s Canápolis plant started operations, with the challenge of crushing 10 million tons of sugar cane by the end of the 2020/2021 harvest.
The company, which has among its values the quest for results and a bold attitude, has a fluctuating production model, meaning it adapts to changing market conditions. But with that model comes a data management challenge of consolidating data from various operating units with the quality and agility an ever-growing business needs.
The accounting department’s employees needed to dedicate many hours to the long accounting close processes, which were done manually via spreadsheets. “I had a zombie workplace, with people who stayed day and night doing the accounting close,” says Alexandre Antonio da Silva, CIO of CMAA. “That was when we realized that it was way past time to look for a solution to this problem.”
If you’ve got the attitude and courage, and a strong partner with a consolidated tool, it gives you the confidence that you’re going to the right place—that you are doing the right thing. And that is what’s happening today.
Why Companhia Mineira do Açúcar e do Álcool Chose Oracle
CMAA chose Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) because it brought agility to company operations from the moment the project was implemented.
And the implementation was fast, thanks to the product’s cloud model and support from IT consulting firm EBS-IT. With no need for specialized hardware to support the solution, it took only about two months, according to da Silva, and was very smooth.
Results
The CIO says that with the Oracle Cloud EPM solution, CMAA was able to abandon manual processes and reduce the accounting close time by 40%. In the past, says da Silva, “Our closings were monthly, all done in a spreadsheet and using manual information. If an inconsistency showed up, it meant a lot of work just to identify the error, because there were several spreadsheets and parallel data. It wasn’t feasible. We had to do a lot of rework.”
Oracle’s EPM solution, he adds, freed up time from manual activities that then could be used for analysis and other valuable activities. Another benefit for CMAA is improved information quality, a must for the company and its shareholders.
Regarding the partnership with Oracle, da Silva is emphatic: “The team is winning, things are working, and the solution is very well regarded by everyone,” he says. “When a team is winning, you don’t mess with it.”
Partners
CMAA worked with partner EBS-IT to complete its Oracle implementation.