KIBAG relies on advanced planning and analysis tools

Different business areas are driving complexity and require further end-to-end process and system integration

KIBAG has grown steadily in existing and new business areas in recent years. Although this has allowed it to leverage its sales potential and further consolidate its market position, it has also gone hand in hand with a significantly more complex system landscape. At the same time, this growth requires highly efficient and effective management of the flow of goods and finances to successfully leverage potential.

A major success factor here is the use of uniform, system-overarching data models and key performance indicators (KPIs) – although harmonizing these across the growing number of fragmented micro-services has proven an increasingly complex challenge.

Long-term focus on agile product development and a cooperation centering on partnership

The successful cooperation between KIBAG and valantic began in the first quarter of 2009 during the pitch for the implementation of a new analytics and advanced planning solution. “We chose valantic as our implementation partner because they convinced us both of their process-specific consulting expertise as well as their underlying technical know-how in the IBM environment,” says Urs Oettli, Head of Group Finance. The companies worked together very intensively  over the approximately two-year project because they not only needed to replace a highly fragmented legacy system, but also set up integrated processes that had not existed in any such shape or form earlier. Despite these challenges, they were able to report significant successes after just a few weeks, which served as a sound basis of trust for the downstream project work.

At that time, Mr. Widmer was not yet working at valantic. Since 2020, Mr. Widmer has been working at valantic and with his joining, KIBAG became a customer of the valantic Group.Mr. Widmer successfully supports KIBAG in the advanced planning and analytics environment until today. Since then, valantic has ensured smooth operation and also carried out enhancements in additional modules. “We chose valantic as our implementation partner because we were convinced by both the process-related consulting expertise and the basic technical know-how in the IBM environment,” says Urs Oettli, Head of Group Finance.

Financial Sales Planning based on harmonized channel and customer segmentation for efficiently synchronizing top-down and bottom-up planning

Following the introduction of IBM Cognos Analytics, the planning processes were partially redeveloped in a second project phase, and for the first time centrally mapped in the advanced planning tool IBM Planning Analytics planning. In conjunction with IBM Cognos Analytics, this allows plan/actual variance analyses to be prepared consistently over the long term, thereby enabling strategic control of all the sales channels and corresponding downstream processes. Similarly to the standardization of the KPIs and attributes, the key challenge lay primarily in the groundwork for defining the planning hierarchies and parameters across the fragmented systems and various stakeholder groups. As a result, it is now possible to strategically consolidate and disaggregate the planning down to the last operational unit. These different aggregation levels also enable plans to be prepared in accordance with the downstream processes’ needs, such as production or capacity planning, and for the first time allow their standardized usage.

Agile, continuous further development based on close and cooperative partnership – without losing sight of the long-term goal

“The joint project with KIBAG is characterized by an emphasis on partnership as well as a trusting and constructive collaboration among equals that is appreciated by all project participants. I have perceived the feedback as very appreciative,” emphasizes Marc Philipp, Managing Director of valantic Business Analytics Swiss AG. KIBAG and valantic initially focused on optimizing the analyses. After that, the focus switched to improving the accuracy and transparency of the planning processes and providing them with a transparent planning calendar and responsibilities.

“In principle, projects like this are never truly completed, because new ideas always arise,” explains Philipp. Another key advantage of the new solution implemented with valantic is that KIBAG can now make changes on its own, for example using simple configuration tables and updates. After completion of the two sub-projects for implementing IBM Cognos Analytics and IBM Planning Analytics, the focus will shift to further optimization over the long term, especially in the end customer, production and logistics environments. Particularly for designing and defining the data sources for these optimizations, KIBAG will certainly continue to turn to valantic’s know-how and expertise.