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SAP Customer Success Story Mill Products

CONSOL GLASS

Delivering Business Insight at the Speed of Thought


Quick facts

The accelerated version of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer is the most impactful and value-enhancing business intelligence tool in which weve invested in a long time.
Johan du Plessis, CIO, Consol Glass (Pty) Ltd.

Company Name: Consol Glass (Pty) Ltd. Location: Johannesburg, South Africa Industry: Mill products Products and services: Glass and glass products Employees: 2,400 Web site: www.consol.co.za Implementation partner: Hewlett-Packard Challenges and Opportunities Provide immediate insight into information Eliminate delays in accessing data Simplify the generation of reports and reduce their cost Ease the reporting burden on IT and reduce its backlog Objectives Implement very fast access to data warehouse information Empower business users with self-service business intelligence SAP Solutions and Services SAP BusinessObjects Explorer software, accelerated version SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Accelerator software Implementation Highlights Emphasized data quality Began with a pilot Used an appliance (software preloaded onto hardware) Completed implementation quickly Provided one-day training courses

Why SAP Integration with SAP software already in place to run the business Powerful self-service business intelligence functionality Usability by casual as well as professional users Speed of data access and delivery Benefits Faster querying by orders of magnitude to uncover insightful findings on the fly Ability to detect trends and root causes in 20 minutes, which used to take 2 days Less dependence on IT to prepare reports Reduced reporting backlog in IT Better responsiveness to business needs Faster, better-informed decision making Decreased costs and increased efficiency Higher user satisfaction Ability to leverage the full value of information stored in the data warehouse Immediate return on investment Existing Environment SAP ERP application SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse component SAP NetWeaver Portal component Spreadsheets

Consol Glass (Pty) Ltd., Africas largest glass manufacturer, needed faster access to the key business information it stores in its data warehouse. Implementing the accelerated version of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer software greatly sped up the delivery of trusted data to decision makers. The applications in-memory technology provides superfast access to insights, says Johan du Plessis, CIO for Consol Glass. Information that used to take days to access is now available in minutes.
Standardizing on SAP Software
Consol Glass manufactures and markets an extensive range of standard and premium glass packaging products primarily for the food and beverage industries of South Africa, where it enjoys a 75% market share. The companys 2,400 employees produce three billion glass packaging containers per year in four factories. Consol Glass is also a leader in sustainability, reusing 25% of its raw materials in recycled glass products. The firm spearheaded South Africas glass-recycling initiative, together with the government, its customers, and its competitors, by creating a glass recycling supply chain that brings colored glass back into the business. To provide support for all aspects of running its business, Consol Glass standardized on SAP software decades ago. The company has kept current with SAPs innovations by upgrading to new versions when they became available, most recently the SAP ERP application. As a midsize company, it is quite difficult for us to follow a strategy of best-of-breed applications, du Plessis explains. We simply do not have the capacity to spend time on integration and data consistency issues. Instead, we count on SAP to keep us at the leading edge of business software technology, and we havent been sorry.

At first, du Plessis and his team employed spreadsheet tools for extracting information from the warehouse, analyzing it, and generating reports. Despite their drawbacks, these tools were initially fast enough to keep up with needs. As the warehouse grew larger, however, the time required to access information and create reports became longer and longer. Soon executives had to wait days for reports needed to make key business decisions. In addition, report generation was becoming an ever-increasing burden for IT. Since ordinary business users found the spreadsheet tools too cumbersome to use by themselves, IT developed a considerable report backlog. We simply had to find a way to speed up information access and delivery, and we had to do it in a way that allowed our business users to do most of the work themselves without involving IT, says du Plessis. Working with SAP, we learned about the accelerated version of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer software, along with SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Accelerator software. The in-memory technology they employ is the key to their lightning speed. The way these applications gain their speed advantage is by building compressed indexes that are stored in memory rather than on disks, which are much slower.

Moving to High-Speed Access with No Need for IT Assistance


Several years ago, beset with data consistency problems, Consol Glass made the decision that all business reporting and analysis would be delivered from a single source. Using the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse component, du Plessis and his team built the Consol Glass data warehouse to comprise that source. And using the SAP NetWeaver Portal component, they created an enterprise portal for accessing the new data warehouse.

We simply do not have the capacity to spend time on integration and data consistency issues. Instead, we count on SAP to keep us at the leading edge of business software technology, and we havent been sorry.

Johan du Plessis, CIO, Consol Glass (Pty) Ltd.

We solved another problem at the same time, du Plessis adds. Since SAP BusinessObjects Explorer does not require IT expertise to use, we were able to provide the self-service that business users wanted while reducing the burden on IT and its report backlog.

Finishing a Two-Day Job in 20 Minutes


The in-memory, self-service applications from SAP delivered an immediate return on investment for Consol Glass. The IT staff now has time for more value-adding activities, and its reporting backlog is down significantly. Most important, management receives critical information quickly enough to make fully informed, on-time decisions. For example, the firms executives were scheduled to make a presentation at a wine conference and needed to know how screw-cap wine bottles were trending against cork-mouth bottles over the last five years. They made an urgent request for an analysis, which

Performing a Fast, Smooth Deployment


SAP and implementation partner Hewlett-Packard made it easy for Consol Glass to begin using its new software. They delivered the applications already loaded onto hardware, saving time and freeing the customer from concern about installation difficulties. Consol Glass began with a pilot stage. After

Since SAP BusinessObjects Explorer does not require IT expertise to use, we were able to provide the self-service that business users wanted while reducing the burden on IT and its report backlog.
Johan du Plessis, CIO, Consol Glass (Pty) Ltd.

To explain the information clarity available from the various SAP applications used by Consol Glass, du Plessis likens them to the bottles the company produces. Viewing raw data directly in SAP ERP itself is difficult, much like trying to see through an amber bottle of ours, he says. Moving up to SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse makes it somewhat easier, like looking through one of our dark green bottles. SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Accelerator greatly enhances visibility just like our Georgian green bottles do. But if you want the ultimate in data clarity, go with SAP BusinessObjects Explorer to unleash all the value in your data warehouse, just as you would go with our flint bottles to see every detail of your wine before you drink it. And if you want that visibility at the speed of thought, choose the accelerated version. The new tools at Consol Glass are proving very popular among users, whose adoption rate has grown to 50%, with more expected. Our users have indicated a desire to do even more with the new software, which would add even more to our investment payback, du Plessis concludes. The accelerated version of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer is the most impactful and value-enhancing business intelligence tool in which weve invested in a long time.

the pilots successful completion, the company performed a gradual production rollout, encouraging rather than forcing users to adopt the software. Those who opted for the new applications were given a one-day training course that covered the software and its documentation and set expectations for the types of tasks they would be able to manage on their own. We were thrilled at how quickly and smoothly the deployment went, reports du Plessis.

the business team delivered within 20 minutes. Before we installed our new self-service, in-memory business intelligence applications from SAP, a job like that would have taken two days, exclaims du Plessis. Rather than disappoint our executives, we were able to come through on the spot with an insightful analysis. They love our new solutions. There is nothing new they have to learn. They just get top-quality information much faster than ever before.

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