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“The collaboration with IBsolution was always on an equal footing and was characterized by mutual appreciation and open, friendly interaction between the project participants. Our implementation partner understood our requirements and absolutely fulfilled our expectations.” Volker Keßler, Head of Controlling at the Bitburger Brewery Group |
Bitburger is one of Germany’s best-known breweries and beer brands. The family-owned company employs around 1,400 people and is headquartered in Bitburg in the southern Eifel region. The brewing group brings together a diverse portfolio of national and regional brands. In addition to the name-giving Bitburger Brewery, these include the König Brewery in Duisburg (North Rhine-Westphalia), the Köstritzer Black Beer Brewery in Bad Köstritz (Thuringia), and the Licher Private Brewery in Lich (Hesse). In addition, there are distribution partnerships with Benediktiner Weißbräu GmbH and the Munich craft beer brewers CREW Republic.
For the daily work in the state-of-the-art breweries with their resource-saving production processes and bottling plants, it is crucial for the company’s success to estimate sales volumes realistically and take seasonal fluctuations into account in order to meet demand without creating overcapacity.
The business planning of the Bitburger Brewery Group’s controlling department consists of upstream top-down planning and downstream operational planning. In order to bring the planning processes up to the current state of the art, the previous tool, Professional Planner, was to be replaced by another planning solution. Since the Bitburger Brewery Group uses a distinctive SAP system landscape, SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) was also among the possible alternatives. The group had already had positive experiences with SAC.
“The requirements for the new planning solution were clearly defined: It should not only cover the previous functionalities, but also expand the range of functions with additional features,“ says Volker Keßler, Head of Controlling at the Bitburger Brewery Group. ”In addition, the software had to have the potential to integrate further sub-planning in the future, thus enabling integrated business planning.“ In the end, the Bitburger Brewery Group chose SAP Analytics Cloud. The decisive reasons for this were its impressive functionalities, modern front end, and native integration into the existing SAP ecosystem.
The Bitburger Brewery Group chose IBsolution as its partner for the SAP implementation. Several factors were decisive in this decision. Bitburger and the SAP consulting company headquartered in Heilbronn had already worked together on various projects in the past, so both sides were able to build on a shared history. In addition, both companies share the common language of medium-sized businesses. And when you have the same values, attitudes, and ways of working, you work better together. In this respect, this cultural fit was an essential prerequisite for successful cooperation. Furthermore, IBsolution’s conceptual approach also convinced the project managers at the Bitburger Brewery Group.
The implementation of SAP Analytics Cloud took around five months. During this time, planning was fundamentally modernized. Key components of top-down planning include sales profit planning, item cost planning, and structural cost planning. This is based on net-net revenue planning for the sales channels retail/digital, out-of-home market, and export, as well as the aggregation of this data at the brewery group level.
In the next step, item costs are determined based on sales volumes and recorded in SAP Analytics Cloud. Technical costs are then determined and cost rates calculated. Dynamic structures replace the previous static references for summing cost blocks and the relevant reference quantities. Complex calculation logic in SAP Analytics Cloud replaces calculations in Microsoft Excel. Structural costs, another major cost block, are planned in detail at the cost group or cost type level.
The planning solution implemented with SAC enables the planning of different scenarios based on changed premises and parameters, as well as versioning. Sensitivity analyses can be used to determine the overall impact of changes in specific driver variables on the planning results. Media breaks and separate Excel planning are now largely a thing of the past.
In addition to the technical implementation, the coaching aspect also played an important role in the project. In intensive training sessions, IBsolution planning experts prepared the Bitburger Brewery Group’s controlling staff for SAP Analytics Cloud, as they previously had little experience with SAC. The coaching focused primarily on the structure of the planning models, stories, and functionalities. The aim of this measure was to enable the controlling department to make adjustments to planning and extend functionalities itself in the future. Feedback from users who are now working with SAP Analytics Cloud has been very positive. They particularly praise the high level of user-friendliness and the comprehensive functionalities of the planning solution.
Volker Keßler is completely satisfied with the course of the project and the results achieved: “The collaboration with IBsolution was always on an equal footing and was characterized by mutual appreciation and open, friendly interaction between the project participants. Our implementation partner understood our requirements and absolutely fulfilled our expectations.” A special feature of the project was that it was carried out 100% remotely. Despite the physical distance, it was possible to establish flexible collaboration characterized by short response times and high efficiency.
The lean and agile project design with elements from lean management proved its worth here. This enabled those involved to achieve results quickly and maintain a high level of motivation within the project team. The Bitburger Brewery Group and IBsolution thus completed the SAC planning project on time, under budget, and beyond customer expectations. Thanks to the pilot project “Top-down planning,” the Bitburger Brewery Group is ideally positioned to incorporate the modular elements from operational planning in the future and further develop the planning process into integrated business planning.
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“The requirements for the new planning solution were clearly defined: It should not only cover the previous functionalities, but also expand the range of functions with additional features. In addition, the software had to have the potential to integrate further sub-planning in the future, thus enabling integrated business planning.” Volker Keßler, Head of Controlling at the Bitburger Brewery Group |
Photo: Bitburger Brewery Group