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SIKO KOUPELNY a. s. is the Czech biggest specialized retailer for kitchen and bathroom equipment, with over 38 stores around the Czech Republic plus 13 more in Slovakia.

The company uses SAP ERP and SAP BW systems for operative and strategic reporting and planning. While planning in SAP BW, SIKO KOUPELNY found their individual user experience with the tool not satisfactory, not meeting their need for level of detail. As a result, the management decided to implement a new planning platform in SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC).

With Corporate Planning Platform (CPP) implementation, Mibcon helped SIKO KOUPELNY a. s. solve their issues, optimize and accelerate their planning and forecasting processes and benefit from having the whole process integrated in one environment in SAC.

At the root of the project was the customer's conclusion that the quality of their planning process was suffering from issues caused by non-existing master platform for planning and forecasting. 

While a part of planning process was traditionally executed in the SAP system, other planning activities were executed elsewhere, mostly in MS Excel spreadsheets, ie. decentrally. 

As a result, several brand new internal processes had to be created first, from scratch. Other processes required modification so that a smooth transition could be guaranteed. 

The main goal was to create a new planning tool that would keep the planning process in one environment and help to optimize internal processes so that the planning is done as effectively as possible.

The project has been divided into 3 phases:

• 1. phase – Finance planning (P/L), Human Resources and Sales planning (in aggregated level of detail).
• 2. phase – Investment planning, Sales and Procurement planning (in the detail of articles).
• 3. phase – Logistics, marketing and cash flow planning

With Corporate Planning Platform implemented in SAP Analytic Cloud, SIKO KOUPELNY a. s. can finally manage and monitor the whole planning process centrally and to their full satisfaction. All key information is now stored in one place, in details required, which guarantees managers more efficient and seamless work with data and faster planning and forecasting. The solution supports commenting the content – at the level of single values as well as whole user stories.

Mibcon a. s. was chosen as a solution provider for several reasons:

• BI and planning competences and realized projects for various customers
• Dedicated planning solution team supported by SAP BW knowledge
• Clear architecture concept for the future use of SAP platforms and systems
• Trusted relationship for many years
• Wholesale and retail market experience

The solution includes the following details:

• Identification and use of planning stories
• Development of specific custom-tailored applications for the customer (using Application Design)
• Interconnection among individual planning areas to facilitate data transfer. As a result, outputs from one area can play a role of important inputs elsewhere. For example, the output of the HR / sales plan becomes a partial input to the financial plan (income statement).
• Tracking KPIs of individual groups of professions based on planned sales at specific branches and within specific product categories
• Allocation of monthly sales plans to the detail of individual days (based on historical seasonality). The option to report "to the day" is included.
• The entire planning process is supported with workflow.