The group which provides accounting and management information services to a range of British Petroleum (BP) companies, Shared Accounting Services (SHA), has used Seagate Crystal Info to develop two new enterprise financial reporting and consolidation applications. These are resulting in major time savings and productivity gains. SHA now intends to establish Seagate Crystal Info as a flexible reporting environment for all its internal clients within BP.
The BP group is one of Britain`s largest companies and one of the world`s largest oil and petrochemicals groups, with 56,000 employees worldwide. Its main activities include the exploration, production, refining, marketing, supply and transportation of oil and gas, together with the manufacture and marketing of petrochemicals. In 1997, BP reported a record replacement cost profit before exceptional items of oe2.8 billion, reflecting continued strong growth.
SHA recently decided to enhance its reporting tools in order to make financial data more accessible to a wide range of users. The move was part of a major upgrade of its information systems, aimed primarily at reducing costs and improving flexibility. DEC VAX minicomputers are gradually being replaced by Compaq Windows NT servers, and its Ingres database by Microsoft SQL Server. A group-wide intranet has also been implemented.
"People wanted easy access to data, and they wanted to be able to analyse it in a variety of ways. We decided that we had to make our reporting process more effective while cutting the effort involved in preparing and distributing reports. This meant taking advantage of new technologies such as electronic mail and Web browsers," said Nakis Papadopoulos, project manager in SHA.
The reporting solution needed to allow for the fact that the requirements of different user groups within BP varied enormously. It had to allow people to integrate data from different sources, to design their own reports, to download to various formats for analysis, and to deliver information in a variety of electronic or paper-based formats. In addition, some users needed to schedule reports to run overnight, and to distribute the results automatically to several people at once.
SHA evaluated several products and technologies, concentrating on three in particular:[TK1] Business Objects, Seagate Software`s Crystal Info, and a bespoke solution based on Microsoft tools. The main criteria used in the evaluation were cost, speed of development, vendor support, maintenance effort and fit with BP`s new environment. In the end, Seagate Crystal Info was chosen because it offered the strongest overall package with the best intranet functionality.
"Crystal Info seemed to meet our requirements very well. It clearly had the ability to create reports quickly and to distribute them effectively over the intranet. An important additional feature was its excellent scheduling functionality, which would help us to meet a wide range of different scheduling needs," commented Papadopoulos.
The first task for BP was to set up the data interfaces and develop the data warehouse, which would take data from the operational database and use it for reporting. Microsoft SQL Server was chosen as the platform for this data warehouse, which has since become one of the largest in the BP group. According to Papadopoulos, Microsoft SQL server not only provided a good fit with the company`s new NT-based environment (including its new Microsoft SQL Server operational database) but was also easy to use and maintain compared to rival products.
In September 1997, the first Seagate Crystal Info application was delivered to a group of more than 100 users at BP`s Global Business Centre in London. Initial feedback on the new reporting system was extremely positive, and a financial consolidation application was also developed. Today, the reporting system is used by a wide range of people within BP to obtain financial information at a variety of different levels. Project leaders, for example, can see at a glance how much they are spending on their projects. The consolidation application is used to consolidate a range of financial information for group reporting purposes.
In total, the system now has about 250 users and the company hopes to roll it out to a further 1,000 users in the future. The reports produced can be viewed from Crystal Info`s client/server desktop, or over the intranet using a Web browser. The multidimensional on-line analytical processing (OLAP) and push technology incorporated in the latest version of Seagate Crystal Info are also now available for BP`s use.
According to Papadopoulos, the process of making information available to his internal customers has been greatly improved and speeded up. A typical report runs in about 30 seconds, and it only takes minutes to set up a new one when required. The system also incorporates a great deal of flexibility.
"People can access information easily and they can schedule reports to run when they want them to. They can group several reports together into one, they can drill down to the right level of detail, and they can download information into spreadsheets for further analysis if they need to. It is also exceptionally easy to distribute reports to others over the intranet," said Papadopoulos.
These capabilities have resulted in major time savings and productivity gains. Furthermore, anomalies and extremes in the data can be highlighted in the reports, helping to identify problems at an early stage. Not surprisingly, Seagate Crystal Info is very popular with users within BP.
"Seagate Crystal Info is a very strong reporting solution, with broad functionality. The technology is excellent, and it is good to see a tool that has so much investment in research and development behind it. We have also found Seagate`s people to be very responsive to our needs," said Papadopoulos.
BP now intends to establish Seagate Crystal Info as a standard reporting environment throughout the entire organisation. As migration from the DEC VAX environment continues, further reporting applications will be developed. Users will also be increasingly encouraged to design their own reports, and Seagate Crystal Info`s new OLAP functionality will be brought into play for analysis and consolidation.
Share
Editorial contacts