National Brands partners with Dimension Data to improve budgeting, reporting quality

National Brands Limited (NBL), one of SA`s leading FMCG companies, has invested in a sophisticated budgeting, consolidation and reporting software solution from Dimension Data.

The Dimension Data/Comshare Management Planning and Control (MPC) system, to be implemented in October, offers numerous benefits to NBL. These include improved reporting quality and speedier reporting processes.

"Potentially the largest benefit is that highly skilled employees will be freed up from routine administrative tasks in order to re-direct their activities towards more value-adding projects," says Heleen Wright, financial accounting executive at NBL.

NBL, which markets, manufactures, sells and distributes fast-moving consumer goods such as Bakers, Pyotts, Willards, Five Roses and Ciro, recently created a shared financial service centre.

"From having worked in a previously decentralised manner, we have now centralised some financial functionality, and are introducing performance metrics," says Wright, financial accounting executive at NBL. "In order to improve the quality of our reporting and limit the time spent on number-crunching, it is necessary to automate all of our financial processes, including our reporting."

NBL chose the Dimension Data/Comshare MPC combination after short-listing four suppliers.

"It made sense from both a business and an IT perspective to go the Comshare MPC route," says Wright. "It was the most sophisticated solution, and the reporting functionality is integrated with budgeting, `what-if` analysis and strategic planning. All this is combined within one tool - and, important for many financial people, it can talk to Excel.

"From an IT perspective, Comshare was the right choice as it uses an SQL database which we already use," she says. "We therefore did not have to make major additional investments in platforms or databases."

Mike Lydon, Comshare account manager at Dimension Data Integration Services, believes the major advantages of this project will be automatic consolidation, timeous distribution of reports, and a more controlled budgeting process.