Hellmann Worldwide Logistics deployed IBM Cognos software to gain greater visibility and insights into its Australian operations. The new system provides automated, accurate reporting and allows managers to identify top customers, profitable activities, and opportunities to improve efficiency. This has helped Hellmann make better strategic decisions, improve cash flow by 25% by encouraging timely payments, and free up finance staff time to focus on analysis rather than data preparation.

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Justin Lake
Financial Controller
Hellmann Worldwide Logistics
Hellmann Worldwide Logistics operates a global logistics network
spanning 443 branches in 157 countries. Services offered include
customs brokerage and freight transport by road, air or sea. The company
employs 19,300 people and generates annual revenues of approximately
EUR3 billion (USD3.3 billion).
Business challenge
Hellmann sought greater visibility of
performance across its Australian operations,
aiming to improve its understanding
of its customer base and encourage
evidence-based decision-making.
Transformation
With detailed reports at their fingertips,
managers can now see which customers
contribute the most revenue, identify
opportunities to boost efficiency, and
determine where best to build new facilities.
Hellmann
Worldwide Logistics
Freeing up funds by
improving monthly net
working capital days
by 25%
“18 months after
deployment of the IBM
solutions, we are confident
that we have made a
sound investment in the
future of our company.”
Justin Lake, Financial Controller, Hellmann
Worldwide Logistics
Business benefits:
25%
improvement in monthly
working capital days helps
fund new initiatives
99.9%
time saving on data
preparation helps finance
staff deliver greater business
value
Guides
decision-making by revealing
clear business insights into
the company’s activities

2. 2
Staying ahead of
competition
In the highly competitive logistics
services industry, making savvy business
decisions faster than competitors is often
the difference between success and
failure. With this in mind, the Australian
arm of Hellmann Worldwide Logistics
sought to initiate savvier decision-making
across its enterprise.
Justin Lake, Financial Controller at
Hellmann, takes up the story: “To make
shrewd strategic decisions, we need
insights such as which customers
contribute the most revenue, how our
costs are distributed, and whether any
new trends are emerging in our industry.
“Traditionally, departments at Hellmann
reported at a branch or functional level
– but this information didn’t tell the full
story. For example, one of our retail clients
receives separate shipments for each
of its stores. Because the stores were
counted individually, you couldn’t see that
as a whole the company was one of our
top 50 clients.”
A major obstacle blocked Hellmann’s
path to holistic reporting: converting
the data trapped in departmental siloes
into valuable information was a slow and
arduous process.
“Our previous reporting system relied
on huge spreadsheets, so it was easy to
make mistakes,” explains Justin Lake.
“Because spreadsheets were not
designed to handle such vast and
complex data sets, reports took a long
time to load, and the system sometimes
crashed just before critical deadlines.
We were spending too much time on
data preparation, and not enough time
on meaningful analysis. When Australia
became one of the first countries in
the Hellmann group to adopt Oracle
E-Business Suite, we recognized that by
integrating our reporting directly with the
new solution we could enable greater
accuracy, granularity and automation.”
Gaining a single
version of the truth
Hellmann deployed IBM® Cognos®
Express software, which includes
enterprise planning, budgeting and
forecasting capabilities powered by IBM
Cognos TM1®, as well as sophisticated
analytics capabilities from IBM Cognos
Business Intelligence.
Cornerstone, an IBM Premier Business
Partner, helped Hellmann select and
deploy the solution.
Justin Lake adds: “We felt that the
IBM solutions were an excellent fit for
our business, because they provide
enterprise-class functionality at an
affordable price. Cornerstone offered a
wealth of experience to help us deploy
the solution swiftly and establish best
practices on day one.
Piers Wilson, Director – Sales at
Cornerstone, says: “We have built a great
partnership with Hellmann: they have
really embraced the Cognos solutions,
and we have worked closely with their
finance team to ensure that they are self-
sufficient with the technology.”
Data flows automatically from Oracle
E-Business Suite to the IBM solutions,
reducing the risk of human error. The IBM
solutions enable accelerated, automated
reporting at a branch, function or national
level, and allow analysts to drill down into
the data to discover patterns and trends.

3. 3
Driving smarter
business decisions
Today, the IBM solutions provide a single
source of operational insight and financial
reporting at Hellmann Australia.
“We now have clear visibility of our all
parts of our business, helping us make
better decisions,” elaborates Justin Lake.
“For example, because we can view
revenue per customer, we can focus on
nurturing the most valuable accounts and
securing their long-term loyalty.
“In addition, deeper insight into the
profitability of each type of work we
do helps us to bid for new contracts
more wisely. We also perform exception
reporting to pinpoint unusual results.
For example, if profitability is higher
than expected, we can search for best
practices to roll out across the business.
If profits fall, we can investigate and
address the root cause to avoid a
repeat. It would have been extremely
hard to find this information when it was
buried in spreadsheets.”
Releasing funds for
new initiatives
Taking advantage of the IBM technology,
Hellmann discovered how to significantly
improve its cash flow.
“As a freight forwarder, we usually pay
customs duty upfront on behalf of our
customers, then charge them back,” says
Justin Lake. “With the IBM solution, we
worked out which customers incur the
highest charges, and encouraged them
to join a scheme that enables them to pay
the tax office directly on a periodic basis.
“By convincing one customer to sign up
for the scheme, we improved our Days
Sales Outstanding by five days each
month. The customer benefits too, as
they no longer need to process monthly
invoices from us.” Seizing tighter control
of finances
Hellmann now utilizes a new system that
helps it quickly identify when customers
are nearing their credit limit, or when a
deadline for payment has elapsed. As a
result, Hellmann’s debt collectors, who
previously had to hunt for this information
in spreadsheets, are much more
productive. Today, the company receives
90 percent of customer payments by the
specified deadlines.
In addition, because the company can
rank customers by how quickly they pay,
the information can help determine how
to set more appropriate credit limits.
Delivering value to
the business
The IBM solutions have also
accelerated report generation from
several hours to just a few seconds – a
99.9 percent improvement.
“Previously, it took finance staff significant
time to prepare the reports for each
quarter close,” recalls Justin Lake.
“Now that we spend less time compiling
reports, we can spend more time working
with business users to analyze the
figures, and helping them make more
profitable decisions.”

4. Please Recycle
Solution components
• IBM® Cognos® Business Intelligence
• IBM Cognos Express
• IBM Cognos TM1®
• Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning
• IBM Business Partner Cornerstone
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© Copyright IBM Corporation 2015, IBM Corporation, 1 New Orchard Road, Armonk, NY 10504 U.S.A. Produced in the United States of America, October 2015.
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Cognos and TM1 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of
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A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at “Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/us/en/copytrade.shtml. This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may
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Building a brighter
future
Now that budgeting is easier than ever
before, Hellmann plans to switch from
annual budgets to 18-month rolling
forecasts, honing its ability to react
rapidly to changing market conditions.
The firm also intends to start integrating
many more data sources, to enable
smarter decisions to better serve its
customer base and tailor its service
model more effectively.
Justin Lake concludes: “Clean, easy-to-
read reports have engaged non-finance
personnel to be curious about data, and
this demand is only going to increase.
With the IBM Analytics solutions in
place, we can fulfil and even exceed
these expectations and continue making
a valuable contribution to corporate
strategy. 18 months after the deployment
of the IBM solutions, we are confident that
we have made a sound investment in the
future of our company.”
YTC04016-AUEN-00