RBC Group announces solution powered by IBM Cognos

“IBM Cognos provides us extensive opportunities for development in the future. Upon continuous search we have found the product which, on the one hand, is universal and flexible, and, on the other hand, strictly complies with our business requirements”
(from talks with Customers).

To get advantage at the current competitive market requires extensive knowledge that would cover all aspects of the company activities. Replacement of paper documentation by e-records management significantly accelerated performance of many business tasks, but at the same time, it has demanded considerable efforts to consolidate and process a vast array of information. Tasks on business planning and analysis came across with the similar issues: multiple electronic spreadsheets, as well as multiple versions of those tables, complexity of consolidation and difficulties in performance of an elementary plan-fact analysis. All this makes it almost impossible to carry out a rapid assessment of business indicators in the company, even of small size.

Being able to arrange collectively the work of multiple employees in the company (for example: planners, analysts and managers) can actually lead to the possibility to gain certain competitive advantage in the market.

RBC Group delivers to its Customers a unique solution –“Planning and Analysis for business” enabling them to solve the above stated issues. This solution has been developed on the basis of a group of IBM Cognos software products.

Business needs

Having started the work with Cognos system in Kazakhstan back in 2009, RBC Group Consultants highlighted the depth of problem associated with the lack of a unified corporate business model and the possibility of working with it collectively: the overwhelming majority of the Customers used and some still use the Microsoft Excel tool in their daily operations.

We should give Excel credit as a good tool for individual work with data: it can quickly handle almost with any kind of information and process it using various manipulations. However the problem with Excel occurs instantly as soon as there is a need to consolidate and integrate the data from multiple sources. Such problems are usually solved either by the “most reliable” person in the company or from Excel itself by using formulas and variety of links. As a result, sooner or later, “the business model in Excel” turns into an extremely slow and unsecured form.

For solving the given tasks, on the one hand, it requires an efficient tool enabling the user to work with data collectively, automating methods that would help to achieve the targets through managing the performance. And on the other hand, specifics of legislation and tax accounting, various business requirements of the Customers, demands from such tool substantial flexibility in building and maintaining a business model as well as options of working with it.

Solution

Taking into account the knowledge and experience of RBC Group Consultants in working with Cognos, the decision to create a “universal” model capable of adapting to various business requirements was made.

Cognos EP is an excellent tool that has satisfied many customers. However, the main obstacles in achieving fully the goal were peculiarities of the model building in Cognos EP and the Customer’s “avalanche-like” increase in the scope of data to be processed.

IBM suggested the right approach would be to use TM1 platform.

Over the past few years, IBM has made a dramatic breakthrough in the field of high-quality business applications. IBM Cognos software series has the highest flexibility and low cost of ownership. It allows to maintain high IBM standards at implementation and technical support in terms of substantial scope of localization and to provide Customers with the efficient automated business processes.
Oleg Bibik, Managing Director of RBC Group says, “IBM Cognos TM1 provides our Customers and us as integrators with a great opportunity for development in the future. We offer a unique tool: on the one hand, a versatile and flexible product, on the other – a product that can strictly meet Customer’s business requirements. TM1 has an intuitive and user-friendly interface that perfectly integrates with existing (accounting) systems. In case of changes in legislation our Customers would find it much easier to adapt to new circumstances than their competitors”.

Benefits

Customers gain much greater control over their business processes of planning, budgeting and analysis with IBM Cognos. In addition, IBM Cognos is the system with the capability for complete and smooth integration with specialized and accounting systems. In IBM Cognos collective, daily work activities of the staff can be organized directly in the system. IBM Cognos provides a full range of reports for analysis and control of operations. Probably the most important aspect has become the widespread use of automated workflow, available in IBM Cognos.

IBM Cognos enables you to achieve the following:

• Ensuring compliance with the corporate policies and the successful completion of each process;
• The system ensures that each process is carried out perfectly, step by step wherever people are involved;
• Errors and omissions have been completely removed from IBM Cognos operations;
• Compliance with state and corporate standards;
• Vertical and horizontal coordination of people, resources and processes to ensure a profit;

Planning and Analysis for business Solution

Key features and capabilities:

• Organization of the planning and budgeting process within a single system;
• Separation of budgets and performance reports by the departments (according to access rights);
• Drill down to specific details on actual execution up to a particular document;
• Ability for business units to enter data into the budget themselves;
• Control over the budget by operational and technical part in real-time mode;
• Arranging department budgets by operating and technical parts in the automatic mode;
• Permanent access to the document history;
• Extremely comfortable and flexible interface;
• Automation of the budgeting process and saving budgets in different versions (optimistic, pessimistic, etc.);
• Automation of arranging the budget and management reporting by subdivisions and consolidated;
• Possibility to perform top-down and bottom-up planning;

Standard in-built reports

Reporting is available in KZT and USD for the different forms of reports. In addition, reports exclude intercompany transactions showing net flows;

Reports on revenues and expenses of plan-fact, containing details and grouping data by:

• Business Units;
• Projects (Contracts);
• Subdivisions;
• Consolidated

Financial statements include basic reports:

• Balance sheet;
• Statement of profit and losses;
• Cash flow statement (direct method);