Flying Tiger Copenhagen transforms planning and budgeting with Oracle EPM Cloud
Summary
Flying Tiger Copenhagen transforms financial consolidation of more than 800 stores, eliminates spreadsheets, and saves 10% of business controller's time with Oracle.
Flying Tiger Copenhagen (Zebra A/S) is a rapidly expanding variety retailer in Denmark, operating more than 800 stores in 30 countries across Europe, Asia, and the United States. In 2016 the company opened more than three stores every week on average. Flying Tiger Copenhagen also launches up to 300 new products every month including home, toys, hobby, party, snacks, electronics, gadgets, fashion accessories, and more.
Until recently, the markets reported their financial numbers via spreadsheets for consolidation at headquarters as input to planning and forecasting, processed in Oracle’s Hyperion Financial Management system. But Flying Tiger Copenhagen found spreadsheets time consuming and error-prone and looked for a cloud solution to facilitate budgeting and forecasting.
Business challenges
- Improve monitoring of financial results across the global organization to cater for high growth in the variety retail goods market
- Gain efficiencies in the planning and budgeting of more than 800 stores in 30 countries by moving from spreadsheets to software as a service (SaaS)
- Improve forecasting process and visibility by replacing large amounts of spreadsheets delivered by the markets with a unique system capable of generating consolidated views at a mouse-click
- Implement a pay-as-you-grow and easy-to-use cloud application integrating with on-premises enterprise performance management (EPM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems
By using Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service we have a much more powerful forecast and budget process. Down the line, we will extend usage to other departments. We’re just at the beginning of our journey.
Christian Schledermann
Head of Treasury, Reporting & Analysis, Flying Tiger Copenhagen (Zebra A/S)
Why Flying Tiger Copenhagen (Zebra A/S) Chose Oracle
“Having chosen Oracle Hyperion Financial Management and Oracle Essbase three years ago, we naturally looked for an Oracle Cloud application to integrate easily into our ERP and EPM systems. Oracle was a natural extension to our existing planning and budgeting platform.”
—Christian Schledermann, Head of Treasury, Reporting & Analysis, Flying Tiger Copenhagen (Zebra A/S)
Results
After a pilot of half a year testing Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service with users in a handful of countries—all of whom have expressed positive feedback—Flying Tiger Copenhagen decided on a full deployment. Prior to roll-out, the company tested and completed automatic data loading to ensure integration to the on-premises Oracle Hyperion Financial Management solution. The markets were trained through web walk-through and Q&A sessions supported by how-to videos and online tutorials. Since go-live, there have been no hitches and the company’s budget and forecast process is now carried out through Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service.
- Streamlined budgeting and forecasting processes using Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service as the common financial reporting infrastructure with built-in scalability to cater for further growth
- Replaced spreadsheets collected from markets across 30 countries with Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service, resulting in a consolidated profit and loss forecast across more than 800 stores to support strategic planning and controlled growth
- Saved 20 man-days per year by replacing spreadsheet collection and uploads with the automated data entry and workflows of Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service, enabling business analysts and controllers to spend more time on monitoring and adjusting costs and revenue per variety goods store
- Achieved tighter control of budgets in a global retail sales organization that grows at a very high pace by deploying Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service to our markets across 30 countries
- Provided an easier way to change forecasts and compare it to actual figures by enabling our markets to enter sales figures directly into the application and, with the head office, jointly visualize and adjust actuals versus forecast
- Improved the quality of reporting and store forecasting by giving Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service users in Copenhagen and in sales territories across 30 countries a common view on numbers, that can be controlled or challenged for more effective planning of activities to expand the variety goods business
- Gained the ability provided by the Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service’s pay-as-you grow model to scale up and add users daily as the variety goods business expands without the need for OPEX or CAPEX and to enjoy 24/7 access to the Oracle Cloud