Macrospect Helps Chemical Manufacturer Align Revenue, Workforce, and Product Profitability Planning with SAP

Overview

A leading manufacturer of adhesive tape and consumer home and office products was using Host Analytics, an inflexible and expensive tool, for their planning and consolidations. With operations spanning multiple countries, the organization needed accurate and timely financial planning to manage its complex production processes and global supply chains.

The company’s existing planning processes relied heavily on manual data consolidation and disconnected spreadsheets. Finance teams spent significant time reconciling data and assembling reports, limiting their ability to analyze performance or respond quickly to changing business conditions.

The organization partnered with Macrospect to implement a centralized planning solution using SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC), providing a single platform for financial planning, reporting, and analysis across the business.

Business Challenge

The company lacked an integrated planning system capable of consolidating financial data efficiently and supporting timely analysis. Manual processes made it difficult to produce consistent planning outputs and limited finance teams’ ability to provide leadership with timely insight into business performance.

Designed to be a jack of all trades, the existing tool didn’t meet the real-world, specific needs of the company’s finance team. The organization needed to support unique business processes, including planning manufacturing operations at a headcount level and building profitability visibility across product families. Finance leaders wanted to align revenue and workforce planning from the lowest levels of the organization all the way up to a consolidated financial plan.

Solution

Macrospect implemented SAP BPC to create a centralized financial planning and reporting platform.

At Macrospect, the approach begins with a business-first perspective rather than a tool-first perspective. Using Macrospect’s proprietary business mapping process, the team worked with the client to map their business processes and planning requirements into the solution so it would support the way the organization actually operates.

The solution enabled the company to:

• Consolidate financial planning data in a single system
• Reduce manual spreadsheet-based processes
• Improve consistency and accuracy of planning data
• Generate reports more quickly for management review
• Plan manufacturing operations at a headcount level to better manage shop floor staffing
• Build profitability visibility across product families

The integrated planning environment also connected revenue and workforce planning, allowing the company to align operational planning with financial forecasts across the organization.

Business Outcomes

The company lacked an integrated planning system capable of consolidating financial data efficiently and supporting timely analysis. Manual processes made it difficult to produce consistent planning outputs and limited finance teams’ ability to provide leadership with timely insight into business performance.

Designed to be a jack of all trades, the existing tool didn’t meet the real-world, specific needs of the company’s finance team. The organization needed to support unique business processes, including planning manufacturing operations at a headcount level and building profitability visibility across product families. Finance leaders wanted to align revenue and workforce planning from the lowest levels of the organization all the way up to a consolidated financial plan.