Fuller Smith and Turner

Fuller Smith & Turner P.L.C., famed for its award-winning London Pride ale, has been based in Chiswick since 1845. Their interests include brewing, pubs and hotels. With turnover of £142m in the year to March 2000, they are one of the leading regional brewers in the country.

Serious money demands serious financial analysis which is why Fuller's invested in Cognos Finance software late in 2000 to streamline its annual budgeting and monthly reporting processes for 2001.

"We started to implement Cognos in November 2000 and we have already seen significant benefits in the budgeting process," said Chris Hewitt, Systems Accountant.

Like many companies, Fuller's had relied in the past on linked spreadsheets to present and analyse much of its management information.

"The previous system had its drawbacks," explained Hewitt. "Based on macro-driven Lotus spreadsheets, it depended very heavily on our Group Accountant to maintain the model and to pull together all the information needed from other colleagues. There was a risk of information bottlenecks developing, which could slow down progress, and our ability to analyse the figures very rigorously was limited.

"Analysis tended to be rather one-dimensional and, if you needed to drill down into the figures, you usually had to go back to the General Ledger which was very time-consuming."

With Cognos Finance in place, however, things became very different.

"The main benefits are speed, transparency and data integrity" said Hewitt.

"In the past, if we wanted to look at a particular cost, say for telephones, fuel or training, on a departmental basis, it would have taken a couple of hours to source all the information. Now we can have it on screen in seconds."

Analysis has become multi-dimensional and, as a result, more meaningful.

"We can now easily see what lies behind the top line figures, spot the trends and see if there are any potential discrepancies or areas of interest."

"The next stage is for us to cascade the information we have more widely through the company so those in charge of a particular cost centre or income stream can have more accessible, more relevant information quickly."

Another advantage is the ability to control user access in terms of what they can view and modify.

"People's ability to view and analyse information is governed by appropriate passwords. Through the system security devices, you can control very finely the access of any one individual. We have freed ourselves of the 'all or nothing' access constraints of the previous spreadsheet-based system."

In introducing the software, Fuller's have relied heavily on Simpson Associates, approved partners of Cognos. They specialise in devising and implementing their Business Intelligence (BI) ReadyMade ® applications for business.

"Simpson's consultants who worked with us, Gavin Allen and Andrew Gray, put in a lot of effort in a short timeframe," said Hewitt.

Fuller's Central Financial Controller, David Steel, had past experience of working with Simpson's.

"I had worked with Gavin Allen before so I knew his capabilities," said Steel. "He gives finance people a lot of confidence that he knows what he's talking about having been an accountant himself. He's also very pro-active and is not frightened to put forward his own ideas."

According to Maggi Baines, Beer Company Systems Manager, "Andrew Gray had particularly good attention to detail especially when working with thousands of codes. It required a fine eye."