Analytic Vision

Company Background

Based in Downers Grove, Ill., Sara Lee Corporation is a global manufacturer and marketer of high-quality, brand-name products for consumers throughout the world. Our businesses are: 

• Fresh Bakery
• North American Retail
• Foodservice
• International Beverage
• International Bakery
• International Household and Body Care

Sara Lee Corporation's leading brands are household names known around the globe. Their preeminent brands are built on consumer needs and expectations, offering exceptional quality and value.

Business Challenges

• The Meat division needed to consolidate sales from six different source systems, financial data, and Siebel plan data; and generate allocated P&Ls by product, customer, and sales position
• Sara Lee wanted to consolidate sales across the company into a centralized reporting solution
• Needed to overhaul the consolidated data warehouse solution to change one of the three sources to SAP 

Solution Implemented

• Oracle’s Essbase and Essbase Integration Services – system 9.3.1
• Oracle’s Hyperion Planning
• Oracle’s BI Foundation & Tools
• Oracle’s Smart View for Office
• Oracle Database

This solution included converting to an Oracle data warehouse and using EIS to create daily and weekly Essbase cubes

• We led the design and development of a DB2 data warehouse that fed several Essbase cubes with Web Analysis reporting
• We led the design and development of a consolidated data warehouse that combined data from three different divisional data warehouse solutions
• Two more Essbase cubes were required to replace SAP BW reporting solutions when end users pushed for a solution that allowed them flexible ad hoc analysis of the data
   

Business Benefits

Users now have access to all Foodservice sales data across Sara Lee in one consolidated solution

• Web based reporting for graphical analysis
• Excel interface for financial analysts
• Automated PDF reports for sales reps

Areas of the business on SAP can flexible access all of the new information being generated with SAP through the same end user interface – note that within two to three years all users will be on SAP

All dimensional data is fully automated, so that products or customers created in SAP, or other source systems like J.D. Edwards, are automatically added to the data warehouse and Essbase cubes with a table driven interface

One set of training materials now supports end user reporting and analysis across the business

The business can view consolidated reporting years before SAP is fully implemented