CONTROL®
Capitalizing on CONTROL’s Extensibility in the Middle East
The Challenge data, stale information and significant amounts of
time dedicated to numerous attempts to extract,
As one of the world’s largest tobacco synchronize and integrate important data.
“KCI’s CONTROL
companies, British American Tobacco (BAT)
serves as the single must constantly track, process, analyze and Forecasting accuracy – which represents a
touch point for all of take action on a multi-dimensional collection of significant challenge in the industry even without
the information that ever-changing information. Regulations dirty data, manual mistakes and error-prone
we use on a daily governing the product’s composition as well as consolidations – became a serious challenge.
basis within the advertising and promotion activities change
regularly and vary significantly by region and Those issues have been resolved; thanks to the
company to make implementation of a corporate performance
country. Forecasting is complicated by the fact
business decisions. that the company sells its product through management (CPM) application that Budree and
We use the various channels, including wholesalers and a his team have since extended to support sales
application to wide range of retailers. And most tobacco and operational planning. By doing so, British
access any companies, BAT included, boast numerous American Tobacco Middle East & North Africa has
information we brands, the sales of each of which are greatly strengthened customer-demand
extremely difficult to forecast due to the forecasting accuracy, which also delivered supply
need to look chain improvements. Along the way, the business
numerous factors and forces affecting sales,
backward or distribution and pricing. has also reaped more traditional CPM benefits by
forward.” increasing the accuracy, visibility and efficiency of
These challenges are particularly acute for the consolidation process, slashing budget cycle
British American Tobacco Middle East & North times, implementing rolling forecasts and
Africa (BAT ME&NA), where the products vary, bolstering scenario planning.
- Adheesh Budree sometimes significantly, among the 19 different
Marketing Information markets in these two regions. “KCI’s CONTROL serves as the single touch point
Executive for all of the information that we use on a daily
British American Tobacco Until 2005, the company addressed these basis within the company to make business
ME&NA multi-layered challenges with an unwieldy decisions,” reports Budree. “We use the
patchwork of Excel-based data repositories. application to access any information we need to
More than 90 percent of the data key look backward or forward.”
executives and managers required to make
decisions resided on dozens of different The Selection
spreadsheets dispersed among numerous
offices in different countries throughout the Given the accuracy and efficiency issues caused
region. by the spreadsheet environment, the company’s
selection criteria were relatively simple and
“In the past, our marketing people compiled straightforward. “We needed a system that would
sales volume information from one set of data bring order to our financial, accounting and sales
while our financial people performed data,” explains Budree. “We originally sought a
budgeting, reporting and forecasting from a financial tool, although we also hoped to find an
separate set of numbers,” explains BAT application that could also strengthen our sales
ME&NA Marketing Information Executive and operational planning processes.”
Adheesh Budree.
The company selected CONTROL in mid-2005,
This arrangement caused problems: “Our and had the system up and running before the end
people were often working with conflicting of the year.
figures,” says Budree, who also points out that
the conflicts hampered budgeting processes. The Solution
Consolidating data from 19 different markets in
the region represented a labor-intensive, error- British American Tobacco Middle East & North
prone process, rife with manually re-entered Africa uses CONTROL to meet several needs.
First, it is a financial tool that brings greater The Support
accuracy, visibility, efficiency and analysis
capabilities to corporate performance BAT ME&NA used Summit Solutions, the Dubai-
management processes. Second, the company based representative for KCI, to assist with the
uses CONTROL to support and strengthen its implementation and also calls on the firm for
sales and operational planning activities. ongoing support to help with new features and
Finally, CONTROL helps BAT ME&NA fortify versions. “We rate Summit Solutions very highly,”
strategic planning efforts. reports Budree. “They provide us with an account
manager and always respond immediately to any
“Our sales and operational planning activities question we have or enhancement to the
are extremely complex,” Budree explains. “We application we want to adopt. They regularly check
run scenarios on CONTROL that give us much on the degree to which we’re leveraging the
more visibility into demand and sales volumes application’s functionality.”
as well as the degree to which demand and
sales are affected by marketing promotions Budree also notes that CONTROL’s
and an array of external factors. We use the documentation is “self-explanatory” while
information CONTROL generates as the emphasizing that the help functionality within the
foundation for unit costing and pricing, which application itself “is particularly thorough.”
are essential for our determinations of profit
and profit margins.”
In support of the company’s sales analysis and Maximum Returns
planning activities, CONTROL serves as the
organization’s single source for all of the By using CONTROL to support its budgeting
information that key managers and executives processes, British American Tobacco Middle east
use to inform their decisions. CONTROL North Africa has achieved the following results:
tracks and stores all of the company’s historical
sales data and helps Budree and his team run Achieved 100 percent data accuracy,
scenarios and analysis that are used to overcoming a major stumbling block prior to
produce monthly forecasts and three-year the implementation.
strategic plans. All of that information is also
Improved budget cycle times by more than a
used by the organization’s sales and marketing
week and implemented continuous 24-month
teams to help adjust unit costing and pricing on
rolling forecasts.
an ongoing basis.
Greatly strengthened scenario planning while
BAT specifically uses CONTROL to plan and reducing manual consolidation work so that
forecast in-market sales (IMS), price structure, staff can focus more time and energy on
volume analysis and shipments. The forecasts strategic analysis.
are conducted on a three-year horizon. The
organization also uses CONTROL to maintain Improved the accuracy of customer demand
and monitor a strategic plan, which covers the forecasting, which delivered greater supply
next 10 years, for volume and shipments. That chain efficiencies.
information feeds the profit and loss account by Improved the precision of insight and visibility
aligning with market expenditure models, into the degree to which demand and sales
selling expenses and overhead expenses volumes are affected by marketing
(including travel and entertainment, and human promotions and other external factors.
resources models).
“The application is user friendly and intuitive,”
Budree says. “From a planning perspective, Customer Business Profile
CONTROL is valuable because of its ability to
slice and dice data while running numerous British American Tobacco is the world’s second
different scenarios very quickly and easily.” largest tobacco group by global market share, with
While these capabilities represent the brands sold in more than 180 markets. The
application’s primary strength for the company, company’s Middle East & North Africa group, is
Budree also notes that CONTROL serves as a based in Dubai and operates through a
strong communications tool. “If somebody has combination of subsidiary companies, branch
a specific need for information, they can offices and business partners in the following 19
access that at the click of a button,” he markets: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq,
explains. “Our effectiveness and Jordan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
responsiveness are strengthened because we Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine,
are assured that we are all working from the Qatar, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab
same information.” Emirates and Yemen.
Take charge of your performance management processes with CONTROL®, the one-stop solution that
offers organizations of all sizes the real-time insight needed to plan, assess and drive corporate
performance. Contact KCI at (310) 921-6222 or info@kcicorp.com.