Miele Ges.m.b.H

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Over 100 years ago, Carl Miele and Reinhard Zinkann began to produce milk separators in a former corn mill. At the time, they were supported by eleven employees. Today, more than 16,000 people in 46 countries all over the world work for Miele, producing and selling over four million household appliances each year. The company philosophy in 2010 was the same as in 1899: “Forever better”.

Miele Austria was established in 1955 and has grown steadily since then. With 600 employees, the Austrian subsidiary generates a consolidated turnover of 163 million euros and is the undisputed market leader in the large domestic appliances market. With its headquarters in Salzburg and one branch in Vienna, Miele is always close to its customers. As well as domestic appliances, the company’s portfolio includes machines for commercial use. At the Miele factory in Bürmoos near Salzburg, Miele specialises in stainless steel parts and supplies the factories around the Gütersloh head office.

Challenges Faced
With the rapid growth at Miele GmbH in Salzburg, their existing reporting system was unable to keep up with the increasing demand for information. The company needed a modern information management solution. Further, it needed to replace a self-programmed customer information system used by the field sales force, which had become impractical to maintain, in terms of the flexibility of the technology and the analyses it offered.

In cooperation with Mummert Consulting, Miele launched its “Creation of a Sales Information System Based on the IBM® Cognos® Analysis Solution” project. The aim of this project was to design a flexible and modern field sales information system based on proven tools from IBM.

Strategy Followed
In preparation for the new system, workshops were organised for Miele employees who would use the system. This helped to define precise requirements, taking into consideration the wishes of all departments and management. All the relevant indicators and dimensional variables for structuring and mapping for the new system were discussed and defined. A key consideration was the requirement for different views of the item structure to meet the needs of sales employees as well as the controlling and marketing departments. Mummert provided valuable support during the design of the system architecture, and during the database modelling. Other activities in the design phase included defining the required analyses, and scheduling user training.

With the new solution in place, the data warehouse is able to consolidate data from multiple sources. Every day a DTL Informatica tool extracts source data from an SAP system and transfers it to a central IBM DB2 data warehouse at the parent company. This data warehouse is used to create globally consolidated reporting using the IBM Cognos solution. It also generates data that is transmitted to the local data warehouse in Austria via file transfer. The existing IBM iSeries/400 with time recording, and an MS SQL server that runs a customer service application, provide additional data sources.

The requirements defined at the Miele user workshops were used to build the optimal solution using IBM Cognos products. The MS SQL server that had been used for data conversion and consolidation was now used to create the IBM Cognos PowerCubes. The key requirements identified during the workshops were considered during the creation of the PowerCube models. The IBM Cognos OLAP solution was supplied with a set of defined reports based on multi-dimensional analyses. And the company worked with IBM to rapidly implement the required automatic generation and distribution of individual field sales reports.

Training was delivered to Miele employees to provide systematic familiarisation with the new IBM Cognos-based sales information system.

Around sixty Miele sales representatives are now able to call up the latest cubes via a remote access through their laptops. This helps them prepare for important meetings with dealers. Above all, the sales force uses four predefined reports and the extremely practical IBM Cognos filter functions. Some power users have also been trained with the IBM Cognos Explorer and are already developing their own useful analyses.

Some examples of these analyses include: logistics and service-level indicators for the spare parts warehouse in the technical service department; and detailed analyses of workload, warranties, and goodwill in customer service.

Benefits Realised
IBM has brought further progress to the marketing area through better information about the company’s product portfolio. The marketing team now has significantly faster access to sales figures for individual items. “Thanks to the implementation of the IBM Cognos analysis solution, Miele’s internal sales department has managed to reduce its monthly statistics prints by 57 percent,” said Siegfried Arming, IT/Org Manager, Miele Gesellschaft mbH - Wals/Salzburg.

In preparation for the next step, Miele is currently testing the detailed analysis capabilities of the IBM Cognos reporting solution. IBM Cognos business intelligence has become an effective, strategic, and globally used analysis tool at Miele. The company is already planning the next phase of expanding the use of the product.

About IBM Cognos BI and Performance Management
IBM Cognos business intelligence (BI) and performance management solutions deliver world-leading enterprise planning, consolidation and BI software, support and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance. IBM Cognos solutions bring together technology, analytical applications, best practices, and a broad network of partners to give customers an open, adaptive and complete performance solution. Over 23,000 customers in more than 135 countries around the world choose IBM Cognos solutions.