Liquor wholesaler Suntory experienced the sweet taste of success when it used BI tools to improve its budgeting and forecasting processes.

Rather than relying on spreadsheets and systems that couldn’t drill down into data, Suntory worked with Professional Advantage to develop a solution that could:

• Use data to drive smarter business decisions
• Make comparisons between budgets and forecasts
• Provide insightful management reports

Suntory Australia’s David Moore says Professional Advantage’s solution serves up the right data, every time.

“Among the data we collect are key indicators of what’s going on in the marketplace… We know managers are seeing this information and don’t need to rely solely on gut feel.”

While raw juices are good for you, too much raw information can be a business health hazard. For the Sydney Opera House, it was the latter. Until recently, most of the Australian icon’s business reports were generated in Excel. Consistency, accuracy and version control were difficult to manage.

Professional Advantage replaced these spreadsheets with a BI solution that could:

• Improve reporting processes, rather than just replicate existing spreadsheets
• Provide a single source of truth for data
• Reduce reliance on Excel spreadsheets

Sydney Opera House’s Joanne Daffron says the goal was to develop a self-sufficient solution.

“The idea is to get as many parts of the business as possible away from Excel and onto BI.”

Even automotive manufacturers need the occasional health kick. After a period of rapid growth, Scania wanted to improve its budgeting system and make it easier to analyse data. 

Scania swapped its manual spreadsheets for  a BI solution that could:

• Allow employees to analyse business activities
• Deliver a high level view of the business
• Provide answers to complex budgeting and forecasting questions

Scania Australia’s Stephen Woodhams says BI has made it easier to understand the company’s balance sheet. 

“Until recently, it was very easy for us to see what the bottom line was, but it was not so easy for us to see what area of the business had caused this and why.”