Creation of an analysis system of financial and operating activities for JSC Novatek

Tasks:

• Unification and automation of collecting of initial data from specialized departments
• Process automation of check, approval and statement of initial data
• Monitoring of processes of collecting and approval of data
• Automatic formation of reports, the bilingual presentations about results of financial and operating activities for the top management
• Automatic formation of reports and the presentations about results of activity for external investors
• Creation of uniform storage and uniform access point to the obtained and created data via the web portal

The used equipment and software:

• IBM Cognos Enterprise Planning 8.3
• IBM Cognos Business Intelligence 8.3
• IBM Cognos SDK 8.3
• MS SQL Server DBMS 2005

The constructed information and analytical system provides timely collecting, check and approval of initial data (minimizing at the same time manual and laborious work), provides the uniform data warehouse and opens ample opportunities for carrying out the effective analysis of financial and operating activities of the company with representation of results, including in an evident graphic type for the top management.

Project deadlines: September, 2007 — May, 2008

Situation

JSC Novatek — the largest independent and the second largest production producer of natural gas in Russia. The company is engaged in investigation, production and processing of gas and liquid hydrocarbons on the fields and license areas located in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area – the world's largest region on natural gas production.

For carrying out the effective analysis and assessment by the management of results of financial and operating activities of the company and preparation of the relevant document it was necessary to create a single system of collecting, processing and storage of required data. Till 2007 this task was carried out by a set of the report forms developed by the company (about 60) implemented in the form of numerous files of Excel. Forms were filled and affirmed as the relevant specialized departments and further went to Department of a financial analysis. In need of entering of adjustments into report forms filling and the statement of forms repeated. On the basis of the filled report forms the Department of a financial analysis prepared for the top management of the company and also investors necessary reports and the presentations on results of activity. At the same time actually manual data processing increased time for search and elimination of errors in the provided information.

In July, 2007 the company management made the decision on creation of the unified information system for the analysis and performance appraisal. According to the results of the announced competition on creation of an information and analytical system by the contractor of the project there was an IT company.

Solution

In September, 2007 the team of specialists of Novatek and IT started creation of the unified information system which had to solve three main objectives.

First, to provide timely data collection from specialized departments in the unified type. Secondly, to automate routine and labor-intensive process of check, approval and processing of initial data. Thirdly, on the basis of data retrieveds (the filled forms) to build the reports and the presentations allowing the top management of the company to carry out the assessment of activities for key indicators.

The solution of the first task was implemented based on a software module of Cognos Enterprise Planning. The created subsystem of data entry allowed to organize work on collection of information from specialized departments of the company, using the predeterminated templates. At the same time this software module allowed to perform data entry via the web interface, intuitive and demanding from users of the minimum preparation.

Access for users to templates was differentiated according to access rights; the approval process of report forms was organized by the hierarchical principle. It gave the chance to create a common information space for several tens users and to optimize data streams, i.e. the staff of the company acquired the rights only for data entry, belonging to the functional area, for their statement or only for viewing. Status reports on filling of forms were developed for reviewers. For convenience of users and reviewers the system of notifications about terms and the status of filling of report forms was provided.

The solution on automation of reports and preparation of the presentations was implemented based on a software module of Cognos Business Intelligence using which data from any sources and types of databases are consolidated and output in a user-friendly type via the web interface. Also for work with a system the possibility of the choice of language of submission of analytical reports was provided.

By May, 2008 the information and analytical system was unrolled in the head company (JSC Novatek), but during its creation the connectivity of other companies of group was considered. According to the results of system operation in the test mode within three months the decision on its input in commercial operation was made.

Features of program implementation

A system has the distributed architecture implemented based on the virtual servers constructed on one server cluster that provides necessary performance.

Structure of servers following:

• DataStore Server (data warehouse)
• Planning Server
• Web Server
• EP job Server
• Report job Server

The missing and insufficient functionality is implemented or improved using Cognos SDK 8.3. It belongs to processes of formation of difficult reports of large volumes. (For example, use of Cognos SDK by preparation of the presentation consisting of 43 slides in one report of the PDF format allowed to reduce a set-up time of this report from several to 15 o'clock minutes.)

For a number of reports the intermediate SQL bases consolidating data from several Publish Container that also allowed to reduce time for design of reports and their accomplishment are used. The last demonstrates sufficient flexibility of the used software product.

Result

The created information and analytical system allows to reduce considerably time for collecting and information analysis about results of activity of the company and to close data streams in a common information space.

Automation of labor-intensive process of manual processing and approval of report forms helped to reduce significantly costs of the human and temporary resources necessary for preparation of financial status statements and results of activity of the company.

Heads of Novatek had an opportunity to analyze reporting data in the different analytical planes (subsidiaries, fields, types of products, etc.) and also to estimate indicators of activity of the company in a format of the approved report forms and the presentations constructed on their basis.

The created uniform information and analytical system provides a direct and continued access to report forms and the presentations about results of activity according to access rights of users of a system.

Prospects

Today specialists of Novatek are faced by a problem of integration of the constructed information and analytical system into other software products used in the company. In particular, automatic transfer of a number of indicators in a system from "1C: Enterprise" and vice versa is organized.