Jemca’s story with IBM Planning Analytics and HAYNE Solutions

In the wake of global economic slowdown, downward pressure on consumer spending means that retail markets for big-ticket items are more competitive than ever. For car dealerships in the UK, the challenge is to keep operational costs as lean as possible while seizing new opportunities ahead of competitors.

These were the challenges facing Jemca Car Group, a leading dealership employing more than 500 people that is based in southeast England.

Gary Brown, CFO at Jemca Car Group, takes up the story: “We operate many lines of business—including retail and fleet car sales, repair, servicing, spare parts, finance and more—and to keep track of our financial performance, we measure more than 100 key performance indicators [KPIs] across all the departments.

“On the sales side, our KPIs include units per month, profit per unit and sales per executive, while in our servicing business, we need to track the number of hours we sell, the productivity of our technicians and the amount of non-chargeable time they spend each month, such as fetching vehicles from the yard. We must also keep a close watch over costs in our body shop and spare parts businesses, because if we hold stock for too long, we increase our exposure to asset depreciation risk.”

Brown adds: “In an industry as competitive as ours, accurate forecasting and budgeting are vital. Timely, accurate reports enable management to review financial and operational results and react speedily rather than waiting until the next month, which is the typical reporting cycle in many other industries.”

Adriaan Kroh, Group Financial Controller at Jemca Car Group, continues: “In the past, our reporting processes were heavily based on manual, time-consuming reconciliation work. Because we had to spend so much time collating and preparing data from multiple separate source systems—each with thousands of account codes—it could take as long as six weeks to produce just one monthly report.

“Our parent company [Toyota Tsusho Corporation] requires that the monthly results be submitted within just four working days of month end. To meet such a tight deadline, we realised that we needed a faster way to prepare accurate reports.”

Step forward, HAYNE Solutions. Jemca partnered with HAYNE to build an automated, integrated budgeting and forecasting process, driven by IBM Planning Analytics solutions, delivering rapid access to financial performance data.

As a result, Jemca Car Group achieved its goal of delivering timely monthly reports to its shareholders, as Brown highlights: “We now perform rolling weekly forecasts in IBM Planning Analytics (powered by TM1), which means that we have a continual stream of actuals coming through to increase the accuracy of our models, and can front-load much of the work that goes into our month-end reporting. Our accountants and line managers can add or modify their figures at any time before the deadline, and any changes automatically flow through to dependent data in other TM1 cubes.”

Brown continues: “Thanks to our IBM Cognos Controller solution, we can now prepare our month-end reports substantially faster—and we’ve never missed a deadline for submitting to our parent company, despite the challenging four-day time window.”

Kroh adds: “Working with our IBM solutions is extremely straightforward. Because we have adopted an integrated approach to controlling, budgeting and forecasting, we estimate that our people save around half an hour every day simply by avoiding the need to swivel between different source systems. Better still, because maintaining our models is so simple, we can complete our annual budgeting process 40 percent faster.

“We can also complete ad hoc reports on our Planning Analytics solution far faster than is possible with spreadsheets. For some auditing and compliance tasks, reporting has gone from half an hour to just minutes—enabling us to spend less time on preparing our data and more time on value-added analysis.”

As Brown concludes, “Thanks to [Jemca’s] IBM Analytics environment and partnership with HAYNE Solutions, we have transformed our approach to reporting, equipping us with the insights we need to shrink our costs, ensure compliance and maximise sales.”

Key takeaways of Jemca’s transformation with IBM Planning Analytics

Equipped with insights. Thanks to IBM Planning Analytics and HAYNE Solutions, Jemca transformed its approach to reporting, equipping them with key insights to shrink costs, ensure compliance, and maximise sales.

Intuitive information sharing = better informed decisions. Jemca can now surfsce information to its users in a fast, visual and intuitive way, enabling them to make better-informed decisions.

Changes automatically flow through all data. Figures can be modified at any time before the deadline, and any changes automatically follow through to dependent data.

RTI to make crucial profit-protecting decisions. Jemca can trigger automated alerts to warn its dealerships when they are holding stock for too long, enabling them to take immediate action to drive sales and protect profitability.

Never miss a deadline. Month-end reports are created substantially faster, and Jemca never miss a deadline for group submission.

Reporting time has been significantly reduced. Ad hoc reports are completed far faster than is possible with spreadsheets. For some, reporting has gone from half an hour to just minutes, allowing more time on value-added analysis.

More IBM Planning Analytics Case Studies

More information about Jemca’s partnership with HAYNE can be found on HAYNE’s website here.

For another transformational IBM Planning Analytics case study on TechStories, click here.