Background

The Carrefour is created in France in 1959. First Carrefour hypermarket opened in 1963, in Sainte-Genevieve-des-bois. In 1999, Carrefour merged with Promodes, and became the leader of the retail business in Europe, the second largest retail company worldwide.

1987 Carrefour established a joint-venture with President Group in Taiwan and opened the first store in Kaohsiung in 1989. It is now become the second largest retail business in Taiwan (The number one retail business in Taiwan is the President Group). Up to 2009, Carrefour runs more than 64 big mega retail stores throughout Taiwan and with more than 11,000 employees.

In order to fulfill the “Everyday low price” and “Everyday fresh” promises to customers, Carrefour decided to chose Hyperion Planning to accurately manage each store’s operations and integrate the budget and cost management for better efficiency and cost saving.

Solution

An integrated and complete forecasting, analytic and reporting solution provided by Hyperion Planning is the key for Carrefour to select this solution.  The Finance Manager and the project sponsor Mr. Cedric Bouvet stated that “It is very important for us to have an integrated budgeting, forecasting, analytic and reporting tool. After the budget been committed, the follow up operation efficiency monitor and management is a MUST. Therefore an integrated analytic reporting tool is the key factor for us to choose Hyperion.” 

Besides, Hyperion Planning integrated with Excel that enables multidimensional analysis and reporting which is very easy and flexible to use.

AdvancedTEK has the largest Performance Management consulting team in Taiwan with highest quality and on schedule commitments. That is also the key for Carrefour to select AdvancedTEK as a partner to implement the solution.

Results

Hyperion Planning replaced old Excel spreadsheets budgeting process. New system allows stores to directly input forecasting data to central location through the web, which not just dramatically reduces human errors. With the automated integration, the analytic reports can also be generated efficiently and accurately.

Mr. Cedric Bouvet pointed out that “In the past, Carrefour stores financial department needed to use Excel spreadsheets to manage the budget. There are more than 3000 accounting codes.  Each store had to enter the codes and data using Excel for budgeting purpose. However, the accounting codes maybe different from one store to another which increased the difficulty to have consolidated reports. After every store submitted the budget using Excel, headquarter needed to spend a whole day just to consolidate the data from 30 stores. After the consolidation, we needed another week to prepare and generate reports.  Now with Hyperion Planning, we can define key indicators and let each store enter their budgeting data. Then the system will consolidate the data and do calculation automatically. The analysis reports are then ready to be generated.”  

Because of the resources required and too time consuming, Carrefour could only do an annual bottom up forecasting submitted from stores and two top down rolling forecast from the headquarter for stores. After implemented Hyperion Planning, Carrefour can now do multiple bottoms up rolling forecast. The analysis reports can be generated efficiently to reflect market situation and the forecast become more accurate.

On the Performance Management, Carrefour used to need a whole week of time for the accounting department to extract data out of ERP and used Excel to generate analysis reports monthly.  Now with the new system, the data from ERP system are extracted automatically into Hyperion Planning after accounting monthly closing. Then complex multidimensional data are calculated and analytic reports are then ready. The whole process only takes 2 hours, comparing to one week using the old way.

AdvancedTEK played a key role for Carrefour successful Hyperion Planning implementation and roll out in a short 3 months timeframe.  With AdvancedTEK very experienced Performance Management consulting team, we did not just implement Hyperion Planning system, we also provided valuable suggestions for improving financial and budgeting processes. This kind of experience was and still is a very important criterion for Carrefour when selecting a solution partner.

Mr. Cedric Bouvet stated that “In the past, we had to use 80% of the time and resources on data gathering and only 20% of the time to analyze the data and reports. With Hyperion Planning, we only need 20% of the effort to do data gathering and 80% of the effort we can work on more important data analysis. The information now meets the needs for high level management decision making.  The forecast is now more accurate. Our high level management team is very happy and satisfied with the results of this project.”

Hyperion Planning integrated performance management, budgeting and forecasting solution can let users easily compare different time period results.  With integrated Excel reporting and analysis tool, financial reports can be generated fast and accurately.  Carrefour can now access stores information faster and easier. Now the decision making and strategy planning are more precise and effective.