Volta Rusland (Novo Forecast Enterprise)

2017

The company Wolta is one of the manufacturers distributors and lighting equipment in and, Russia in the countries CIS portfolio of which as of November 2023 there are more than 2,400 SKUs.

The introduction of the software product was necessary in order to overcome the negative impact of external factors, as well as solve internal problems. Wolta has a very long shoulder - it can take six months or more from ordering an item to it arriving at the warehouse.

Each division focused on its own forecast and did not trust the general one. The company's basic forecast was based on sales statistics, taking into account the underdelivery factor, for which the corresponding coefficient was derived by expert means.

The forecast was calculated three times a year, with clarifications on major events that could significantly affect demand - for example, entering a product into the network or vice versa, its unexpected conclusion. It usually took about a week to clarify - it was necessary to carry out all the calculations again and coordinate them with all participants in the process. Three times, because the main supplies to the company come from China, and due to the local New Year, the country does not work for almost a whole month, which significantly affects the timing. That is why the first half of the year each time had to be predicted entirely, and the rest of the year - quarterly.

The forecast itself was carried out by commodity groups, based on the revenue in each, and then decomposed to the SKU level by actually dividing. All this cannot be quickly corrected without an automated system, the forecast is a very voluminous and long work.

The initial stage of the implementation of the Novo BI software product was to load master data and match the model. Thus, the company began to test different forecasting regulations, taking into account all factors, business features and data from 2019. And after the first three months of operation of the system, the company managed to increase the accuracy of the forecast by 15 percentage points on average for departments.

Several factors are considered in the forecast. These are blockages, stocks, short deliveries, shortages, tenders, one-time deliveries and others. Analytics has become much deeper - product managers have the opportunity not to waste time on calculations, but to engage in analysis. Thus, the introduction of the software product gave the company the opportunity to see new details and forecast factors that are almost impossible to reach by manually counting the data.

Key Implementation Results

• The unified information platform has become the center of business decision-making in the company.
• The accuracy of the forecast (DPA) increased in the first three months after the start of work with the program by 15 percentage points - from 49 to 64, and after eight months of work - to 83%.
• The detail of forecasting from product group to SKU (Customer/SKU) has increased.
• Reliability and transparency of planning increased (forecast + all factors).
• The speed of the forecast recalculation (from a week to an hour) has decreased several dozen times.
• It became possible to quickly respond to changes, calculating the forecast at any time when it is necessary.
• Shipment of goods is carried out taking into account the current need.
• The frequency of orders has leveled off, which made it possible to smooth out peak loads per season.