INDUSTRY

V&S Group, one of the ten largest companies in the global alcoholic beverage market, has implemented Cognos Enterprise Planning from Cognos Inc., the world leader in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management. The V&S Absolut Spirits business division is using the solution to run 'what if' scenario planning models, forecast, plan and budget global sales and generate profit and loss information. Cognos Enterprise Planning replaces the company's inflexible legacy system and better fits its new business model, giving V&S an overall view of the revenues and costs for each brand and market, enabling it to identify profitable product lines per country. The solution only took eight weeks to implement, and was completed in May. V&S Absolut Spirits markets a range of products under five brand names. Among them is the world's third largest premium spirits brand, Absolut, which is sold in 126 markets. The business model builds on two elements; market budgeting where revenue and marketing is allocated per brand and market, and overhead budgeting. Cognos Enterprise Planning will integrate the two and provide the division's 70 users with an overall view of performance. The solution enables automatic data collection and forecasting, and improves efficiency and reduces cost as users can make changes to the planning model themselves, rather than having to depend on the IT department to do so. "Cognos has a strong track record and an extensive offering, and its planning solution is among the very best I have seen. It has a sensible layout and a number of useful capabilities that save time and increase quality in the planning process. Above all, it is simple to build and flexible, so we can tailor it to suit our business model," said Jonas Arvidsson, Vice-president Finance & Administration at V&S Distillers. "Many people associate planning tools with cost management, but Absolut is a good example of an organization that uses the tool for global sales forecasting. Cognos Enterprise Planning is as much a tool for the marketing and sales department as it is for the finance team. Planning for the future can be complicated, and with sales of eight million boxes of liquor, the quality of the estimate is important," said Doug Barton, vice-president, Enterprise Planning Product Marketing, Cognos Inc. "Most customers only use Excel, but Absolut had quite an advanced custom solution in place. In choosing Cognos, it acquires excellent support for processes and budgeting that integrates easily with its current systems. Adopting this standardized solution has also helped ensure a fast implementation," said Anna Strid, project leader at IT consultant Pointer, which implemented the system. Cognos Enterprise Planning is a web-based solution and runs on a Windows 2000-environment with a Microsoft SQL-server.