Emerson Network Power EMEA streamlines financial processes

Emerson is a diversified global manufacturing and technology company that offers products and services for a wide range of fields – from process management and climate technologies to network power, motor technologies, and industrial automation. Emerson has approximately 129,000 employees and 250 manufacturing locations worldwide, with sales in 2009 reaching $20.9 billion.

Emerson Network Power is a division of the Emerson Electric Group, which has 17 subsidiaries in Europe. Headquartered near Venice, Italy, the company generates revenues worth $400 million annually. Working in a challenging business and financial environment, with subsidiaries across Europe, Emerson Network Power wanted to simplify the complexities of its financial processes throughout its European locations.

Mr. Andrea Busato, Finance Director Consolidation for Emerson Network Power in Europe, leads the financial planning and controlling activities of the company’s European operations.

He explains: “I am in charge of collecting, reviewing and consolidating financial information from all of our businesses. This includes budgets, forecasts, long-term planning and so on. Our environment is very demanding in terms of data and the amount of detail and information that needs to be collected from many different sources.

“My challenge was to find a tool that allowed me, in a very structured and process-driven manner, to collect, consolidate and share all of our financial data across our legal entities in Europe. We needed to be able to do this quickly, and with a minimum of administrative effort. We reviewed a number of alternatives and chose IBM Cognos Planning. It is a leader in the marketplace, and ultimately proved a straightforward choice for us.”

Streamlined processes and improved accuracy
Emerson Network Power EMEA works in a highly demanding environment. Financial data originates from a number of different sources within a diverse group of subsidiaries, making Europe-wide financial processes highly complex. The aim was to streamline the process of collecting information from all these different companies and enable quick and easy analysis.

Says Mr. Busato, “We used to work on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, and spent many long evenings – or even whole weekends – consolidating our figures. A very positive outcome of the IBM Cognos Planning and BI solution is that it has substantially reduced the time we need to dedicate to collecting and analysing financial data. With Cognos, the amount of overtime we need to work has been slashed to a bare minimum, without compromising on our ability to generate accurate and detailed reports. In fact, it’s quite the reverse: we have improved both the process and the accuracy of our analyses.

“The IBM Cognos solution has streamlined the procedures as most of the checks and balances, cross checks, and low added-value information are managed by the system. This releases analysts who work on the financials to focus on other, more important factors, like understanding how the business is doing and creating better budgets and forecasts.

“The process with IBM Cognos Planning is also more accurate. We can drill down to a very detailed view of the data, understand where an issue may be arising, and react quickly with a solution. This was a great achievement for us.”

Sharing information
One particular requirement for Emerson Network Power was to be able to share all the financial information it collected with everyone in the company, whether these individuals were finance-oriented or not. Emerson Network Power therefore needed a tool that would allow quick and easy access to information from a variety of departments and locations across Europe.

Mr. Busato explains, “I cannot stress how important it is for us to be able to consolidate and share our analyses with staff throughout the organisation, whether they are within the finance department or not.

“In most companies, finance is viewed as an ivory tower: anything that happens within the finance department stays there. In Emerson, however, financial data is spread across a variety of different functions. With the IBM Cognos solution we can share all our information easily, without having to install local applications or software. Non-financial users do not need to be conversant in database query languages, as IBM Cognos Planning and BI provides a very user-friendly interface that allows for lucid presentation of the data. Staff across the business now have clear and easy access to the information they need.

“We used to have to share information by email, which was inefficient. Now access is immediate: people don’t have to ask us for data, and we don’t have to take time out to supply it. On top of this, easy access to information means that people are more engaged and get more involved. With this solution, people are suggesting changes and improvements to our financial data – it’s a positive loop, and the more we improve the quality of our information, the happier our managers are.”

“The IBM Cognos solution allows us to collect information in a process-driven manner from a variety of different sources. At the snap of our fingers we are able to access and benchmark information across divisions, and share the data in a user-friendly manner. This is extremely useful to us.”

Creating independence, minimising costs
Emerson Network Power also wanted a system that would be simple to manage from a technical perspective, enabling the company to become self-sufficient instead of relying on external support.

Mr. Busato notes, “One of the key drivers and the reason we got the green light from management to move ahead with the project was the fact that by implementing the IBM Cognos Planning solution, we could become independent of external consultants. We have not needed any help for the past 18 months.

He concludes: “We are very happy with IBM. The IBM Cognos Planning and BI solution has enabled us to achieve all the goals we had set out during the planning process, and more.”