GLOBALLY OPERATING &
INNOVATIVE BI TEAM
Cloetta, founded in 1862, is a leading confectionery company in the Scandinavian countries, Finland and the Netherlands.
The listed company, with an annual turnover of approximately 635 million euros in 2019, produces and sells candy, chocolate, nuts, fudge, nougat, pastilles, chewing gum and pick&mix concepts.
Cloetta has eight factories in five countries, approximately 2,600 employees in eleven countries and some of the strongest brands within the various product categories such as Läkerol, Sportlife, King, Redband, Venco, Lonka and Jelly Bean Factory.
Cloetta’s Cloetta’s products are sold in over fifty markets. To bring global, local, internal and external data into up-to-date knowledge pro- ducts, Cloetta’s internationally operating IT & BI team works with a Modern Data Platform, implemented in close cooperation with Connected Data Group, in which the Global Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) and other less structured data sources are unlocked with TIBCO® Data Virtualization.
Cloetta | Oosterhout – NL
www.cloetta.com
BETTER PROGNOSES WITH DATA VIRTUALIZATION
Confectionery is one of the most impulse-driven product groups in the retail trade. Cloetta’s collaboration with customers and proximity to consumers are important competitive factors.
By intelligently analyzing consumption patterns, taste preferences and sales methods in the various markets, Cloetta is able to make the most of its business opportunities.
By merging multiple local and global data sources, in near real-time using Data Virtualization, avoiding duplicating the integrated data, Cloetta achieves improved sales and inventory forecasting capabilities. The in-depth insights strengthen the learning and decision making ability of the sales and distribution organization.
“With the use of Data Virtualization,
Cloetta delivers BI Solutions
that really make the difference
and would never have been feasible
without TIBCO® Data Virtualization.”
– Han van Bijnen.
Cloetta’s enterprise-wide BI Team makes data available via Data Virtualization. This leads to greater understanding of the Supply Chain, better understanding of local dynamics and business recommendations.
The accurate forecasts provide a clear picture of the benefits associated with them. Together, they form the source of inspiration for both local and global growth.
Han van Bijnen
Senior IT Manager Service Delivery
Sander van Rie
BI Application Specialist
Sofie Nuyens-Hönen
Senior IT Manager BI
MANAGEMENT OF DATA STREAMS
In order to successfully get Cloetta’s products into the stores, the global BI team, whose employees are spread across four locations in the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland, together with local developers, is developing and managing efficient reporting/analysis products, such as dashboards.
Recently, for example, the team delivered the Field Sales efficiency project in Finland. With only 16.5 inhabitants per km², Finland is one of the sparsely populated countries of Europe (compared to the Netherlands: 411 people per km²). In order to visit all the shops where Cloetta products are sold, there are about 200 Finnish merchandisers on the road every day.
To use the available resources as smartly as possible, the country has been divided into logical regions and visiting routes. Even so, there was a feeling throughout the organization that there was room for improvement. Although there was plenty of data available, Cloetta Finland was not successful enough in converting this data into good analysis and proposals for improvement.
The need to make all relevant data easily and unambiguously accessible through a central solution became increasingly apparent.
By bringing together the daily diversity of customer data from the CRM application and additional Excel files, with the help of TIBCO Data Virtualization and visualization and analysis via Qlik Sense®, the Sales and Area Managers gain insight into the current state of affairs every next day and make the business reports more relevant to multiple stakeholders.
TANGIBLE RESULTS
“Now that the Finnish colleagues have a grip on their data and the analysis are becoming increasingly reliable, all merchan-disers can use their strengths and resources to their full potential,” said Senior IT Manager BI, Sofie Nuyens-Hönen.
“With these new insights, the management of the field sales organization can steer on achieving the targets of the merchandisers, such as the frequency of visits to stores.
These are all wonderful results that contribute to good business operations and find their basis in a good information architecture.”
“We are now able to roll up the combined data to region, chain, route and store in almost real time, and to ‘drill’ it down to the lowest level of detail. This creates a geographical picture of Point of Sales locations where major improvements have been achieved or can still be achieved.” – Sander van Rie
Cloetta Dashboard
WORKING TOGETHER
AS PARTNERS
“Connected Data Group is thé party we like to be with. In our collaboration, two moments have been crucial to the success of our BI environment; these are the design of our data architecture and the implementation of TIBCO® Data Virtualization.
And of course the knowledge they bring in and share with us through technical advice, training or via ‘Learning on the Job’.
If you want to summarize it, we especially appre- ciate the three characteristics in our partnership:
1. Sharing expertise & ‘quick start’
2. Transfer knowledge & create independency
3. Let go & peer over the shoulders”
– Han van Bijnen
The photo shown was taken before the COVID-19 outbreak.
Time to market
The design and realization of new information products has really accelerated by the use of the virtual platform. Our Time to Market has become shorter than expected. That’s the great thing about working with Data Virtual-ization, says BI Application Specialist Sander van Rie.
Also important, Sofie Nuyens-Hönen adds, now that our Finnish colleagues have found an application within their own organization that seamlessly matches their requirements and wishes, the need to work with a variety of external tools is reduced.
With the enthusiasm after delivery, as a BI team, we have demonstrated the strength of our modern data platform and the BI solutions that are possible within it.
The enthusiasm after completion has never been greater, Han van Bijnen continues. After the demo in a virtual meeting with the Finnish sales team, a spontaneous ‘wave’ arose. That same day, I received an indicative email from the Finnish director of which I am slightly proud, says Van Bijnen, who then quotes:
“I’m convinced,
that there is no company in Europe,
that is able to provide
the same depth of insight
on Field Sales Management.”
– CEO Cloetta Finland
“It is very nice to be an independent BI team
that can always rely on the experience
and expert view of Connected Data Group.”
– Sander van Rie
FUTURE plans
Looking ahead, we see many more possibilities with Data Virtualization. Our next steps will mainly focus on combining and connecting data rather than stand alone-solutions. We can add Warehouse, Store and Sales Data to the Finnish Field Sales Model and will apply the results from previous projects more widely, says Sofie Nuyens-Hönen.
We also think about using Data Virtualization for the transformation of data into a cloud environment, adds Han van Bijnen.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Would you like to present information products that improve the learning and decision-making capacity of your organization just like the BI Team of Cloetta? Or do you want to know more about Data Virtualization? Please contact Connected Data Group:
T. +31 6 40 40 50 75
E. info@ConnectedDataGroup.com