It is complete the project of upgrade of a budgeting system of Sportmaster Group

In November, 2011 the IBM corporation and IBS company announced project completion on upgrade of a budgeting system of Sportmaster Group. During the project the budgeting methodology is updated, the new budget model on the IBM Cognos TM1 platform is created. The project allowed to raise Sportmaster budgeting speed, having reduced time, necessary for making changes, from several to several o'clock minutes.

In 5 years which passed from the moment of successful product introduction of IBM Cognos Planning, the Sportmaster Group considerably extended – sales volume increased, the retail network grew practically three times, the number of representations in foreign markets increased, the directions of business extended. Rapid growth promoted that the operating budgeting system ceased to conform to modern requirements of business. Restrictions for volume of the processed data, the low speed of recalculation of model and the outdate technology base imposed significant restrictions for efficiency of budget model.

The management of Sportmaster Group set the task of operational upgrade of the existing methodology of budgeting and transition to the new solution conforming to continuously changing and becoming complicated requirements of business. For these purposes the product IBM Cognos TM1 meeting all qualifying standards and providing the high level of succession with the working model of the company was selected. Essential criterion for the choice of the platform was the opportunity for work with unlimited data arrays, support of the complicated business processes and hierarchies of data and also convenience of work of users and expanded functionality.

For project implementation of upgrade of a system the IBS company which perfectly proved during development of budget model in Sportmaster Group in 2006 was invited. During the current project the IBS command in close cooperation with specialists Sportmaster solved the following tasks:

• the migration of the existing model on the IBM Cognos TM1 platform including drawing up investment budgets, expenses on start of new shops, budgets for functional articles, operating expenses and also income and expenditure budgets on each of more than 1500 centers of responsibility;
• all technological limits on the current system are overcome;
• system architecture optimal at the moment is organized;
• the usual interface with additional functionality for end users is saved;
• the complicated business processes and organization structure are systemically implemented;
• conditions for development and growth of model are created.

As a result of upgrade of a budgeting system time for consolidation of the budget and holding procedural procedures was significantly reduced. Expansion of functionality of a system in total with preserving of the usual user interface promoted easy and fast adaptation of employees work with a new system. Elimination of restrictions for volumes of the processed data offered new opportunities and prospects for further expansion of business processes regarding formation of plans and the reporting. Integration of a system into the module BI 10 allowed to organize in real time creation of detailed reports on all budget indicators and transactions and as result, to increase quality of acceptance of management decisions.

"Main advantage of transition to new product TM1 is considerable reduction of time for consolidation of the budget. The procedure of making changes became simpler: in old model recalculation of the budget took several hours, now the model is updated in several minutes, almost in real time. Thanks to existence of functionality of maintenance of unlimited amounts of data in TM1 for us sales opportunities of new requirements of planning, for example, budgeting of internal operations on each object opened", - Olga Paroyeva, the head of the budgeting department and the management reporting of Sportmaster LLC notes.

"According to joint survey of IBM Institute for Business Value and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the number of the heads using solutions of a business intelligence for obtaining new competitive advantages grew by 50% from 2010 to 2011, - Alexander Tikhonov, the head of a business intelligence, IBM in Russia and the CIS said. - The growing complexity of business processes requires more and more effective tools financial and the business analysis. The project implemented in Sportmaster company shows effective use of the Cognos TM1 tools for an output of business process of budgeting to qualitatively new level".