506 Part Three Key System Applications for the Digital Age INTERACTIVE SESSION: MANAGEMENT COLGATE-PALMOLIVE KEEPS MANAGERS SMILING WITH EXECUTIVE DASHBOARDS Colgate-Palmolive Company is the second largest One of the outputs of the warehouse for senior consumer products company in the world whose managers is a daily HTML table showing a series of products are marketed in over 200 countries and financial and operational metrics for the day com- territories. The company had 38,600 employees pared to the previous month and quarter. The data worldwide and $16.734 billion in annual revenue the executives see is exactly the same as what their in 2011. Colgate has been keeping people smiling peers in all Colgate regions and business units see. and clean around the world, with more than three- However, the data were not being used by enough quarters of its sales in recent years coming from out- employees in their decision making to have an side the United States. Colgate's brands in oral prod- impact on business benefits. Colgate's power users ucts, soap, and pet food, are global names, including had no trouble using the reporting and analytical Colgate, Palmolive, Mennen, Softsoap, Irish Spring, tools provided by the warehouse, and they were Protex, Sorriso, Kolynos, Elmex, Tom's of Maine, satisfied with the matrix reports from the system. Ajax, Axion, Fabuloso, Soupline, and Suavitel, as well Colgate's senior managers and other casual users, on as Hill's Science Diet and Hill's Prescription Diet. the other hand, did not feel comfortable running ad The secret to continued growth and stability for hoc reports or drilling down into the layers of data the past two decades has been Colgate's ability to to answer questions the data brought to light. They move its brands off shore to Latin America, Europe did not have much time to spend developing reports, and Asia. In the past, Colgate divided the world into and the standard reports produced for them by the geographic regions: Latin American, Europe, Asia, warehouse lacked navigation and drill down capabili- and North America. Each region had its own infor- ties. Tables had no color coding so users could only mation systems. As long as the regions did not need interpret the data by scrutinizing the numbers on the to share resources or information this patchwork table. system worked, more or less. This all changed as Eventually Colgate's senior managers and other global operations became more integrated and senior casual users began requesting deeper access to the management needed to oversee and coordinate these warehouse data in a more timely and user-friendly operations more closely, format. They wanted reports that were easier to Colgate had been a global SAP user since the early run and where the data could be interpreted faster. 1990s, but it was running five separate ERP sys- Senior management requested customizable, real- tems to serve its different geographic regions. Over time dashboards that could be more easily used to a period of time, disparities in the data developed drive performance improvement. between different geographic regions and between Colgate's information systems specialists then the data used at the corporate level and the data used implemented SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator to by an individual region or business unit. The data speed up data loads and improve user perception and were constantly changing. For example, every time a adoption and SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence sales report was run, it showed different numbers for to build customized reports. SAP BusinessObjects orders and shipments. Colgate wanted more usable Web Intelligence provides a powerful, intuitive data to drive business decisions and all of its manag- interface that enables business analysts and non- ers and business units worldwide to use the same technical business professionals to ask spontaneous version of the data. questions about their data. Casual business users can Colgate chose to solve this problem by creating a use simple drag-and-drop techniques to access data single global data repository using SAP NetWeaver sources and create interactive reports that drill, slice Business Warehouse, SAP's analytical, reporting and and format information based on their needs. Tools data warehousing solution. Colgate's regional ERP for cutting edge visualization allow end users to view systems feed their data to the warehouse, where two-and three-dimensional charts and hone in on the data are standardized and formatted for enter- specific areas of focus. prise-wide reporting and analysis. This eliminates Colgate started using SAP's BusinessObjects differences in data across the enterprise. tools to build user-friendly dashboards, and quickly created dashboard prototypes for management to review. Once management approved the dashboard design, the dashboards were populated with produc- tion data. Now Colgate's senior managers are run- ning the dashboards to monitor the business from a high level. Employee training was essential to the dashboards' success. Members of Colgate's global information systems development team created cus- tomized courses for Colgate's 65 business intelligence experts and ran the classroom training. The training identified people that could be used as resources for developing the reporting tools. When word spread about the dashboards' capabilities, Colgate's power users signed up for the classes as well. For Colgate, better reporting tools that can sup- port different kinds of users have greatly expanded the use of business intelligence throughout the company. Currently about 4000 users interact with Colgate's SAP systems daily but this number is expected to expand to 15,000 to 20,000 users in CASE STUDY QUESTIONS Chapter 12 Enhancing Decision Making 507 the future. People who are accustomed to seeing reports stuffed with numbers are finding that they can use the information presented in dashboards to make faster decisions. For example, managers can determine positive or negative financial conditions by simply looking for where dashboard reports use the color green, which reflects improvements in Colgate's financial position. Executives who formerly relied on other people to obtain their custom reports and data are able to access the information on their own. They can see real data from the system much more easily and quickly. Sources: Paul Ziobro, "Colgate Shows Improved Growth," Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2012; Colgate Palmolive Corporation, "SEC Form 10K for the Fiscal Year Ending December 31, 2011," Colgate Palmolive Corporation, February 26, 2012, David Hannon, "Colgate-Palmolive Empowers Senior Leaders with Executive Dashboards," SAP InsiderPROFILES, April-June 2011; www.colgatepalmolive.com, accessed July 22, 2012; and SAP "Placing Relevant Business Content within Business User Reach," 2011. 1. Describe the different types of business intelligence users at Colgate-Palmolive. 2. Describe the people" issues that were affecting Colgate's ability to use business intelligence. 3. What management, organization, and technology factors had to be addressed in providing business intelligence capabilities for each type of user? 4. What kind of decisions does Colgate's new business intelligence capability support? Give three examples. What is their potential business impact