Pivot had spent those three years embedded within the SAP Business Intelligence Team of a global consumer brands giant. Pivot got to know them well.
Years later, the consumer giant needed to transform financial planning across almost 70 countries. The success of their transformation seemed to depend on implementing SAP Analytics Cloud.
But as it turned out, it hinged on something much simpler: relationships built over years of working together elbow-to-elbow in their offices just west of London.
When their biggest transformation challenge arose, that shared history made all the difference.
The consumer giant’s financial planning was broken. As the company behind some of the world’s most famous brands and high profile acquisitions, they needed to be able to respond faster. Faster to rapidly changing market crises including pandemic demand spikes, supply shortages, and regulatory changes. Instead they were trapped in spreadsheet hell.
When it came to forecasting, they were doing it in Excel in 30 different ways across the globe. Each market had their own approach, their own templates, their own version of the truth.
The business impact was severe. Critical calculations were happening in silos with inconsistent data, making enterprise-wide scenario planning impossible. The chance to deploy AI across their data was the stuff of dreams.
When the SAP Analytics Cloud project launched, the company’s Business Intelligence Team faced a problem. They needed someone to work full time provisioning data from their core SAP systems into their new planning platform.
The company’s team didn’t have the resources to commit someone internally who could prepare, secure, and deliver data in a structured and accessible format for analysis, reporting, or operations.
Enter the power of established relationships.
The client asked Pivot to get involved. This wasn’t about technical credentials – though after 20 years in SAP, those were solid. It was something money cant buy : institutional knowledge and personal trust built over years of shared delivery.
Previous experience meant Pivot had the ability to come in to the client team and be autonomous.
While a global systems integrator was appointed to manage the overall Analytics Cloud implementation, their teams were primarily in India. Pivot embedded client-side in the UK operation. The difference was immediate and measurable. We were able to get to work straight away, whereas anyone else would have taken up to three months of grinding gears to get to the position where they needed to be to begin work.
“The project’s excellence was recognised with an SAP Innovation Award.”
The work itself was complex. But because Pivot already understood the company’s systems, processes, and people, it could focus on delivery rather than discovery.
The project wasn’t smooth sailing initially. With up to 100 people involved across systems and countries, co-ordination was challenging.
But the transformation delivered across every metric that mattered. The system went live across more than 60 markets, and 44 factories, with over 1000 colleagues using the platform. Planning cycles were cut dramatically, freeing up more time for strategic decision-making instead of manual data processing. The platform could now process 1.5 billion data records to power financial forecasts. The project’s excellence was recognised with an SAP Innovation Award.
However, the real value lay in business agility. Instead of Excel chaos, the company now had one source of truth for planning and forecasting data. That enabled real-time scenario modelling. It meant the system could answer great questions such as “what if we put the price up by 5% across the globe?”.
The teams now had a “ holistic-enterprise-wide” system everyone agreed with. No more spreadsheet battles. People in the business could see it. It was visible and measurable.
To be AI-enabled, organisations need to ensure they are pumping clean and consistent data into their systems. That’s exactly what this team now has. A robust foundation they can use for whatever business objectives lie ahead.
The lesson for global manufacturers isn’t just about choosing the right technology or systems integrator. It’s about the power of embedded, on-site partnerships built on trust.
When you find partners who understand your business, work with your culture, and deliver with your success in mind, transformation isn’t just possible. It’s inevitable.
Clients details have been anonymised to protect confidentiality.
