Deploying an effective budgeting and reporting solution
at ICI
A solution based on Geac© DecisionWeb™ providing
a clear and concise structure for budgeting. ICI Paints
is a division of ICI PLC, one of the world’s largest
producers of speciality paints and products. ICI Paints
operate in the UK through two business units: the UK Retail
Business and the UK Trade Business. These incorporate a
group of central functions, including production, IT and
HR, which recharge costs to the two businesses.
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Background |
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In March 2000, ICI Paints were striving to budget and
report with proliferating and unlinked spreadsheets.
Without an interlinked solution, ICI Paints was experiencing
inconsistent budgets. Moreover, simultaneous budgeting,
required by ICI Paints’ departments, was difficult.
Budget allocation was an on-going issue throughout each
financial year. Late changes in budget, an inherent problem
of belonging to a large group, affected the integrity
of the data.
In addition, ICI Paints were unable to report
and budget its customer matrix mix. ICI Paints have
four brands, including Dulux™, Polycel™, Hammerite™ and
Cuprinol™. Each has up to fifty key product groups
and ten key customers. Understanding this customer product
mix was essential to ICI Paints.
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Why
M2bis |
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In March 2000, ICI Paints were striving to budget and
report with proliferating and unlinked spreadsheets.
Without an interlinked solution, ICI Paints was experiencing
inconsistent budgets. Moreover, simultaneous budgeting,
required by ICI Paints’ departments, was difficult.
Budget allocation was an on-going issue throughout each
financial year. Late changes in budget, an inherent problem
of belonging to a large group, affected the integrity
of the data.
In addition, ICI Paints were unable to report
and budget its customer matrix mix. ICI Paints have
four brands, including Dulux™, Polycel™, Hammerite™ and
Cuprinol™. Each has up to fifty key product groups
and ten key customers. Understanding this customer product
mix was essential to ICI Paints.
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The
Project |
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ICI Paints were already familiar with Essbase™ for
reporting and they required the same structure for budgeting.
Geac© BudgetPlus™, a budgeting solution
based on Essbase™, was selected to enable them
to successfully utilise the same Essbase™ model
for both budgeting and reporting purposes. Upon recommendation,
they chose M2bis to provide technical and training support
on the project.
In 2001, following M2bis’s successful
implementation of BudgetPlus™, ICI Paints realised
that they needed to deploy the solution via the web.
BudgetPlus™ alone could not support this and so
Geac© DecisionWeb™ was chosen to supplement
it and to achieve the required functionality. Utilising
this technology, M2bis converted the solution from pure
BudgetPlus™ to DecisionWeb™, retaining the
base budgeting functions that were still fundamental
to ICI Paints’ budgeting requirements. The solution
is deployed among 15 of ICI Paints’ financial personnel.
Plans are in place to roll it outside the finance function
in the near future.
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Benefits
to the Client |
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- The solution provides a clear and concise framework
for budgeting.
- Parallel budgeting is now possible.
- Budget share is consistently identified and
tracked.
- Late changes are assimilated whilst retaining
the integrity of the data.
- ICI Paints can now understand, budget and report
their customer product mix.
Martin Harrison, Finance Director, Decorative UK, ICI
confirms, “Thanks
to M2bis’s professional support, Geac© DecisionWeb™ has completely
revolutionised our budgeting process and our marketing reporting is now in
place. We have a sensible budget which we can report against and inconsistencies
have
simply melted away.”
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Benefits
of working with M2bis |
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ICI Paints selected M2bis as their integrator of choice
on two successive implementations for their:
- High level of service received during the BudgetPlus™ implementation
- Deep technical capability and knowledge
- Capacity to identify the correct technical solution
for a given business requirement
- Ability to deliver technical documentation and
to provide technical and user training
- Flexibility of resource
- Speed of response in resolving ad-hoc queries
- True independence
Martin Harrison concludes, “Our M2bis
experience has been very, very positive.”
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