CHALLENGES
Agrana is among the internationally leading sugar companies, important producer of customer-specific starch products and global market leader in the segment of fruit preparations. Originally, the global subsidiaries of the international group independently prepared the corporate planning based on MS Excel, which did not always follow a uniform structure. Big differences are to be found, for example, in the level of detail of the local planning. Especially from a consolidated view at the divisional level, the planning of the subsidiaries was elusive. As a consequence the corporate planning was very time consuming and prone to error. The controlling of the planning and the creation of scenarios needed much effort and was very likely inaccurate.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Integrated controlling software used as uniform standard in all subsidiaries of the division and on corporate level, where it is also applied for strategic planning and management consolidation. The key benefits are: multi-dimensional strategic planning, top-down and bottom-up planning, uniform view on the group level, complete integration in the existing group reporting (based on SAP BW) through data import and export and most important: transparent planning processes. Every figure in the financial statement, the budget and the profit and loss statement of the subsidiary can be retraced without consultation. With the CoPlanner transnational simulated calculations can be made within a very short period of time. The internal cost allocations within the group are fair according to the input involved and transparently integrated in the corporate planning. Thus also reports and important key figures are available at the push of a button.
CoPlanner significantly increased transparency on the devision level. Thus the planning progress of all subsidiaries is central and promptly comprehensible and influenceable.
LESSONS LEARNED
Due to margin reports, deviations between different scenarios can be retraced more quickly and with more detailed information than was possible at division level before. The enormous volume of sales postings, for example, can be consolidated according to pre-defined rules and criteria in order to match it with the semi-finished products (silo sugar) with as little additional manual entries (material number + market by product category stock) as possible. A reduction of the fixed costs at production level can also be immediately passed on to the produced goods. Depending on the expected market prices held in the CoPlanner, value adjustments can be automatically calculated. Besides bearing tables the adjustments also directly affect the financial statement and the profit and loss statement.
Thereby we save valuable time and resources with the generation, change and communication of planning premises as well as for quality control of final plans.
