Analytics

IBM Cognos TM1 for Capacity Planning in the REIT Industry

July 12, 2017 by Dan Bernatchez Leave a Comment

We recently blogged about using IBM Cognos TM1 for capacity planning in both the oil & gas industry and in manufacturing. We also have a great client example of how TM1 can be used for capacity planning in the REIT industry.

Our client, a large real estate investment trust (REIT) company with several billion dollars in assets and Class A office space in most major U.S. cities needed a sophisticated solution to model out leases for its buildings and space, and to plan for lease expirations and renewals. The REIT wanted to perform complex capacity planning and revenue planning by identifying which regions and buildings are expected to gain capacity. This information would also allow the company to make strategic decisions about when and where to upgrade facilities, adjust rents and change terms of new leases.

With TM1, the REIT now has a capacity planning solution that enables them to analyze information by tenant, by lease and by building. It can perform analysis on expirations and renewals, in order to project current and future revenues based on both existing and anticipated conditions.

Read about capacity planning in the REIT industry.

IBM Cognos TM1 for Capacity Planning in Manufacturing

June 28, 2017 by Dan Bernatchez Leave a Comment

We recently blogged about capacity planning in the oil & gas industry using IBM Cognos TM1. In short, by using TM1 for capacity planning, a business can better understand how to maximize the capacity it has on hand, how to plan for expected increases and decreases in supply and demand, and how to capitalize on market opportunities to increase physical capacity at the most optimal times.

One of our clients, one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of roofing materials, with nearly 30 plants and a large variety of products created from different materials, wanted to optimize and create efficiencies for the products it manufacturers. They specifically wanted a capacity planning model that incorporates each plant, the multiple lines each plant runs, the products per line and per hour, and the shifts in the plant, and the length of those shifts.

With TM1, the manufacturer can now reallocate back in time if the data reports that a plant’s capacity has been exceeded. It can also report if a plant is currently exceeding capacity, or if a plant is performing under capacity. The capacity planning model provides red flags when it sees plants underperforming, enabling management to make decisions around whether they need to add additional shifts to those lines, or to move manufacturing of a specific product to a different plant.

Read about capacity planning in the manufacturing industry.

Using IBM Cognos TM1 for Capacity Planning in the Oil & Gas Industry

June 20, 2017 by Dan Bernatchez Leave a Comment

Capacity planning is the process of determining the production capacity needed by an organization to meet changing demands for its products. Most people think of IBM Cognos TM1 and automatically think just of financial planning. They think of how organizations of all types and kinds use TM1 for budgeting, planning, reporting and various other office of finance activities. But as we have learned in our decades of experience in working with TM1, there are many other ways companies can use TM1.

Just one of these ways is capacity planning. In short, by using TM1 for capacity planning, a business can better understand how to maximize the capacity it has on hand, how to plan for expected increases and decreases in supply and demand, and how to capitalize on market opportunities to increase physical capacity at the most optimal times.

One of our clients who needed a capacity planning solution is in the oil & gas industry. We built a solution for them that uses TM1 for operational performance management data on their storage of oil and gas. The company has contracts with its customers to store petroleum products to be transported. By having greater visibility into its tank utilization, the company can both be more efficient, and be more proactive by driving more revenue when there is spare capacity available.

Read about capacity planning in the oil & gas industry.

IBM Cognos TM1 for Demand Planning in Manufacturing

June 14, 2017 by Dan Bernatchez Leave a Comment

Demand planning can guide businesses to improve the accuracy of revenue forecasts, align inventory levels with peaks and troughs in demand, and enhance profitability for a given channel or product. Many of our clients who rely on IBM Cognos TM1 for financial planning, reporting and analysis have asked us to help them design and develop TM1-based demand planning applications.

We recently blogged about two examples of using IBM Cognos TM1 for demand planning. One was demand planning in the food and beverage industry and the other was in professional services. Another client of who asked us to use TM1 for demand planning is a roofing materials company in the manufacturing industry.

They tasked us with creating a solution that would deliver comprehensive functionality for operational planning and analysis to help them optimize and create efficiencies for the products it manufactures and the associated shipping costs and resources required to get the products to the customers.

One aspect of this system is a volume and demand planning model that collects and analyzes data by product, by region and by customer. This gives the business the visibility needed to make decisions based on what to manufacture and where to manufacture it.

IBM Cognos TM1 for Demand Planning in Professional Services

June 8, 2017 by Dan Bernatchez Leave a Comment

We recently shared a use case on how a client is using IBM Cognos TM1 for demand planning in the food and beverage industry. We also have a client in professional services who is using TM1 for demand planning. They are a market-leading business support solutions and services company that serves the majority of the top 100 global communication service providers.

Like most professional services firms, they make their money based on the number of billable hours its consultants service its clients. After we worked with them to build an IBM Cognos TM1-based financial planning and reporting application, they asked us if we could help us with demand planning, which would need to integrate with the overall financial planning application.

We built a demand planning application that enables the team to analyze demand by role, project, geography and status. Now, with this TM1-based demand planning application, the company’s line of business managers and senior executives can optimize staffing resources to better serve their clients.

IBM Cognos TM1 for Demand Planning in the Food and Beverage Industry

June 1, 2017 by Dan Bernatchez Leave a Comment

Here’s an example of how we used TM1 for demand planning in the food and beverage industry. In particular, we built this application for a craft brewery.

On one hand, what could be more fun than performing demand planning for the craft beer and cider industry? On the other hand, what could be more challenging? Beer distribution is not a simple model. Instead, the brewer distributes its products to a wholesaler, who sells the products to a retailer (a store, bar or restaurant). This particular brewer has an added complexity in that they issue their products with a “sell by” date, meaning any product remaining with the retailer or wholesaler after the “sell by” date needs to be returned to the brewer.

We worked with this craft brewer to design and develop a demand and sales planning solution using IBM Cognos TM1 integrated with IBM Cognos BI. We developed specific cubes that enable the brewer to track and analyze distribution, sales, depletions and returns by wholesaler. The system first tracks shipments to each wholesaler, then it records depletions (the products by wholesaler that have gone out to retail outlets). Lastly, the system tracks returns from the retailer to the wholesaler, and then back to the brewer.

Now, the brewer can make strategic decisions on where to invest marketing and sales support by wholesaler, identify top performers and develop strategies to keep them there.

Predictive Analytics in Insurance

June 1, 2017 by Justin Croft Leave a Comment

While we’re primarily known for our expertise in financial performance management and IBM Cognos TM1 and now IBM Planning Analytics, we’ve been growing an elite practice for predictive and advanced analytics for a few years now. In fact, at the IBM World of Watson conference in late October 2016, IBM announced that Revelwood was selected as the Customer Analytics Business Partner of the Year. This was for our work in designing and developing customer analytics solutions.

Two of these solutions just also happen to fall into the category of predictive analytics. One focuses on how an insurance company is using predictive customer analytics in a for sales and marketing and the other is a B2B retailer who is using predictive customer analytics in a digital marketing platform.

This insurance company wanted to get more meaningful insight and business value from its customer and marketing data. It wanted to use this data to determine where to invest in marketing programs, and how to prioritize sales efforts in order to maximize revenue and profits.

We decided to use IBM Predictive Customer Intelligence, Watson Analytics, and Expert Storybooks to create an application that would leverage the right data in order to segment the insurance company’s members and create prioritized lead lists. Now, with these prioritized lists, the company’s sales agents have moved from an average sales success rate of rate of 12% to an average success rate of 45%.

Top 5 Tips for a Successful Predictive Analytics Project

April 12, 2017 by Justin Croft Leave a Comment

Predictive analytics holds the promise of making your organization smarter, more nimble, more competitive, and ultimately, more profitable. But in between deciding predictive analytics can help your organization achieve any one (or several) of these objectives, and realizing these results, there are a series of decisions that can better ensure success, or, potentially derail your initiative.

Our award-winning professional services team has developed 5 tips that will help you better maximize your chances of having a successful predictive analytics project. Here’s a quick list of those 5 tips:

Set a clear, meaningful goal
Know the difference between insights and action
Build measurement into the plan
Prepare to be cross-functional
Focus on deployment

We’ve expanded on these tips in a whitepaper that provides more detail and insight into how to use these for your predictive analytics initiative. Download your copy today.

How to Avoid Five Potential Pitfalls of Analytics Projects

March 14, 2017 by Justin Croft Leave a Comment

The promises of analytics are many: business insights, competitive advantage, increased profits, and more. In some cases it may even seem like the opportunities delivered by analytics are nearly endless. So how could one possibly fail with analytics?

Sadly, as Meta S. Brown points out by titling her recent piece in Forbes, “86% of Executives Can’t Make Analytics Pay. Here’s How You Can,” many initiatives never break even. Meta sees the difference between successful projects and unsuccessful project as coming down to planning and execution (read her full piece to understand why).

We’ve found there are five common pitfalls that can delay, kill, or otherwise cause analytics projects to fail. Every situation is unique, but understanding these traps can help you avoid them, thus, increasing the odds of your analytics project becoming a success.

Here are the five potential pitfalls of analytics projects:

Not understanding why you want analytics
Not planning for measurement and metrics before you begin
Not having a goal for your analytics project
Not having your analytics team work with your business users
Not understanding the critical need for speed to insight

We’ve created a whitepaper to address how to avoid these five potential pitfalls. Download it here.