Benefits as Clear as Glass Be it red wine or Worcestershire sauce, Consol makes a bottle to suit – because it knows precisely what consumers are looking for. And from now on, Africa’s leading manufacturer of glass will find out even more quickly what makes the market tick, while work will become simpler for its staff.

1. 56 cHalleNGe SAP SPECTRUM 4 /2010
BenefIts as Clear as glass
Be it red wine or Worcestershire sauce, Consol makes a bottle to suit – because it knows precisely what
consumers are looking for. And from now on, Africa’s leading manufacturer of glass will find out even more
quickly what makes the market tick, while work will become simpler for its staff.
Author: Stephan Magura

2. SAP SPECTRUM 4 /2010 cHalleNGe 57
a stuffy conference room in the Pretoria capital of South
Africa. Although ideas are flying hot and heavy, the heating is
on. It’s winter in South Africa, time for the Consol manage- aT a GlaNce
ment to do the rounds of the factories to check on productivity
the sItuatIon Consol Glass strives to continuously optimize its
and business development. Pretoria today, Clayville tomorrow. business intelligence solution. The glass manufacturer uses BI as a
Then Wadeville. Or is Bellville next? It’s a cycle that repeats strategic tool to strengthen its competitive position.
every quarter.
whY sap? As a long-standing SAP customer, Consol trusts solutions
As always, everyone is well prepared for the meeting, and from the Walldorf software company. SAP BusinessObjects Explorer
the latest data is on hand – including pertinent information was presented at SAPPHIRE in 2009 and immediately impressed CIO
from the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver Johan du Plessis.
BW) software. Nonetheless, plenty of questions crop up dur- the result The rollout is in full swing. Some 60 business users
ing the session. Such as, “Where’s all the mayo going?” Mak- already employ SAP BusinessObjects Explorer for asset management,
vendor management, production, sales, and analyses of market and
ers of mayonnaise have been turning more and more to plas- company data.
tic bottles, but Consol still only offers the traditional glass
mayonnaise jar. Wouldn’t it be helpful to know how the sales
numbers for the jar have changed over the last five years?
“I just whipped out my iPhone, opened the SAP Business- tor software as an extension to SAP NetWeaver BW, which
Objects Explorer software, found the jar, and ran the query. A Consol had been using for years. “We put a lot of money
couple of seconds later, we knew the answer,” recalls Consol’s and effort into building our business intelligence solution
chief information officer Johan du Plessis when we meet a week to improve the quality of our data,” says Johan du Plooy, a
later at Consol headquarters in Germiston, near Johannesburg. business analyst at Consol who works closely with the CIO.
Apparently, the glass mayonnaise jar sold very well from 2006 The switch from SAP R/3-based reporting to business in-
to 2008, but sales declined in 2009 owing to the recession. This telligence-oriented insight some six years ago marked the
year, mayonnaise jar sales are climbing again. Conclusion? starting-point for more intensive use of business and mar-
Quality mayonnaise still comes in proper glass jars, whereas ket data. However, the users did need some convincing. “We
discount mayo is often packaged in PET bottles. Question an- had to win them over by providing an excellent service,” du
swered, to general relief. Next item on the agenda... Plooy remembers.
“I think meetings like that will run much more dynamically Since then, the small IT team has earned the appreciation
and efficiently in the future. New tools from SAP and new of the business departments and management. The power of
ways of presenting information are making this possible,” du SAP NetWeaver BW is acknowledged. Specialists handle the
Plessis says. He introduced SAP BusinessObjects Explorer to analyses, which can take days to prepare – depending on their
Consol around a year ago and is now rolling it out across the complexity. Such long response times are not unusual, but
company, step by step. First, he started experimenting with the CIO isn’t satisfied. “I want our decision makers to be able
to act on the spot,” says du Plessis. “Just imagine what a dif-
ference it makes if you can give a business partner an answer
in minutes, while the competition has to call back in a day or
i jusT whiPPed ouT my iPhone, two.”
oPened The saP business- That is precisely where SAP BusinessObjects Explorer –
which runs with SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP NetWeaver BW
objecTs exPlorer sofTware, Accelerator – shows its strengths. Using integrated in-memory
found The jar, and ran The technology that draws on the large memory capacity of today’s
databases, data is aggregated when a user needs it. The user
query. a couPle of seconds no longer has to generate the information before providing it
laTer, we knew The answer. in multidimensional cube structures.
— Johan du Plessis
Uncorking speed
The result is a substantial improvement in performance com-
a provisional cloud version because the hardware for the on- pared with classic business intelligence systems. Du Plessis
premise solution wasn’t available last fall. Today, he takes gives an example: “We use it a lot to research trends. When
the on-device SAP BusinessObjects Explorer with him wher- asked which wines in which markets are best bottled with a
ever he goes. He finds it every bit as good as the on-premise cork and which with a screw-top, a good specialist needed
version. two days for a specific analysis using SAP NetWeaver BW.
Speed and simplicity: That’s what impressed du Plessis in SAP BusinessObjects Explorer came up with the answers in
2009, when he first experienced the new tool from SAP at the 10 minutes.” It can also unearth some surprising information.
SAPPHIRE customer convention in the United States. At the “Off hand, we couldn’t figure out why we were suddenly sell-
time, he was implementing the SAP NetWeaver BW Accelera- ing so many Worcestershire sauce bottles when our major →

3. 58 cHalleNGe SAP SPECTRUM 4 /2010
In the plants, employees can check consumption
of materials and critically examine costs.
customers for the line hadn’t ordered any more. We asked ingly more people in the field are turning to it to keep track of
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer a few questions, and it soon their sales. Others are using it to explore relationships with
became apparent that other customers were ordering them for vendors and simulating market trends. And in the plants,
completely different purposes,” du Plessis says. The benefit of employees can check consumption of materials and critically
information like that is obvious: Discovering hidden connec- examine costs. “In a capital-intensive industry like ours, hav-
tions helps identify and strategically address new potential. ing control over the ratio of fixed to variable costs is crucial.
And the more quickly that can happen, the more effectively So is maximizing the utilization of our furnaces,” du Plessis
Consol can position itself in the market. remarks. It will be very useful to find out quickly how much
So far, du Plessis can count about 60 business users – man- energy and other resources were used in a particular produc-
agers and others not specially trained as analysts – who use tion run and, if necessary, make changes in the next run. “It
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer. He says its clear and simple will help us develop and monitor standards for sustainable
production,” he adds.
Helpful feedback
our PeoPle quickly sTarTed
To enjoy The sofTware and Nevertheless, Consol’s work isn’t quite finished. As the third
company in the world to implement SAP BusinessObjects Ex-
more of Them now wanT To plorer, Consol is helping SAP identify and eliminate any weak-
use iT. — Johan du Plessis nesses in the software. “There are still a couple technical limi-
tations,” du Plooy says. For example, SAP BusinessObjects
Explorer initially didn’t work with the new releases of SAP
NetWeaver BW and SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator. There
design is a big help; it is just like using an Internet browser. are also some differences between the cloud version and the
Whether the questions are about sales or plant maintenance, on-premise software. And the company’s IT experts would
the look and feel of the animated charts and graphs is the same, like to see a few more SAP NetWeaver BW functions in SAP
and they respond at once to new information. Any change is BusinesssObjects Explorer, such as the ability to handle more
noticed immediately, he says. “As a tool, it is self-explanatory, complex queries and more HR-specific functionality.
so people get used to working with it in next to no time.” SAP Nevertheless, Consol has seen users’ acceptance of the
BusinessObjects Explorer can be used in many ways. Increas- software rise steadily. “Our people quickly started to enjoy

4. SAP SPECTRUM 4 /2010 cHalleNGe 59
in-memory technology has won the backing of Cio Johan du plessis, who
regularly uses Sap businessobjects explorer to research trends.
consol Glass
Consol glass manufactures and markets an extensive range
of standard and premium glass packaging products, primarily
for the South African food and beverage industry. A leading
company in its field in Africa, Consol glass employs 2,400 people.
As the founding member of The glass Recycling Company or-
ganization, Consol supports the recovery of glass for recycling.
the software and more of them now want to use it,” du Plessis
says. “SAP delivered exactly what I saw in Orlando.” That
isn’t always the case with new products, emphasizes the CIO.
Often it takes years to get from a marketing presentation to a
usable product.
Du Plooy stresses that the users’ experience with SAP
BusinessObjects Explorer is only as good as the data in SAP
NetWeaver BW. Additionally, users need to know their busi-
ness so that they can ask the right questions. For du Plessis,
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer is the key to running an eco-
nomically viable data warehouse: “When you look at the total
cost of operating a business intelligence solution, filling the
warehouse with data isn’t all that expensive. But what is ex-
pensive is when highly-paid specialists take hours to get a
half-decent result because the quality of the data isn’t good
enough. You can’t afford to have inefficient processes to get
the data you need out of the warehouse. SAP BusinessObjects
Explorer is the key to getting a return on investment from your
SAP BI system. That’s where it adds value.”
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