valantic financial Pilot (powered by IBM Cognos and Planning Analytics)

VERBIO is running full speed ahead, optimizing planning & analytics

Verbio has successfully replaced its Excel-based systems with the powerful valantic financial pilot (powered by IBM Cognos and Planning Analytics). The integrated solution provides accurate error detection, comprehensive monthly reporting and advanced scenario planning to effectively manage volatile markets and political uncertainties. Learn how Verbio benefits from improved efficiency and transparent decision making.

Success Story: Verbio optimizes planning & analytics

Verbio SE

The Company

With innovative technologies and green solutions, Verbio SE, based in Zörbig (Saxony-Anhalt), is shaping the social and industrial transformation toward climate neutrality and ecological production. In the Verbio biorefineries, sustainable biomass is used to produce climate-friendly fuels, green energy, and renewable products for the feed and food industry, the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries, as well as for chemicals and agriculture. Verbio employs approximately 1,400 people at its sites in Europe, Asia, and North America. With the products delivered in fiscal year 2023-24, Verbio’s customers achieved a CO₂-saving effect (“handprint”) of 4.4 million tons of CO₂ equivalent. By 2026, Verbio plans to increase this CO₂ reduction to 8 million tons of CO₂ equivalent.

Challenge

Introduction of a powerful, integrated planning solution to successfully counter volatile markets, policy decisions, currency fluctuations, and the availability of organic raw materials, and to support transparent business decisions.

Consulting approach

Conception, design, and implementation, taking into account pre-defined requirements and accompanying coaching.

Customer benefit and solution

VERBIO significantly optimizes its planning and analysis processes with the valantic financial pilot (powered by IBM Cognos and Planning Analytics). The new centralized platform provides accurate error detection, monthly reports with decision-making metrics, and advanced scenario planning.

Knut Peters
Head of Controlling Group at Verbio

”We have used valantic since the very beginning because of its broad expertise; it has been our software and implementation partner since 2018. We are extremely satisfied with the performance and results.“

The challenge

Introduce and implement a powerful, integrated planning solution

Verbio has grown sharply since the commissioning of its first biodiesel plant at the Bitterfeld site (Saxony-Anhalt) and has expanded internationally, with production and administration sites in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, the USA, Canada, and India. The old planning and reporting solution, which is essentially based on Excel, has therefore increasingly reached its limits. In addition: Volatile markets and prices, dependence on policy decisions, currency fluctuations, and the availability of raw materials are challenges that Verbio faces almost every day.

A high-performance, transparent, and integrated planning solution should therefore lay the cornerstone for continued successful business decisions. In particular, the new planning should become faster and easier to understand, existing media disruptions should be eliminated, and planning errors easier to identify and correct.

Solution & result in detail

valantic has been Verbio’s preferred consulting and software company in the financial sector since 2018 and has always delivered very good results. Verbio was also impressed by valantic’s excellent support – available at any time for urgent requests. The new planning approach, integrated into the Verbio Cognos world, went into productive use in the first quarter of 2024 and includes the following components:

valantic financial pilot powered by

IBM Cognos Analytics
IBM Planning Analytics
IBM Controller as a consolidation tool
ERP and data warehouse as data storage

Thomas Kreiß
Financial Controller at Verbio

”The valantic financial pilot (powered by IBM Cognos and Planning Analytics) is a very powerful tool for planners. Among other things, we prepare a report for the management every month, which contains all current business results and key figures. Our goal is to manage all P&L, sales, and HR planning via the IBM platform.“

Six benefits at a glance:

Powerful planning and reporting solution

The integrated solution replaces old Excel-based planning and offers greater efficiency and performance.

Central data entry and control

Planners worldwide enter their data directly into the system, and the controlling and data warehouse are centralized at the headquarters in Leipzig.

Unified platform

Revenue, sales, and HR planning are controlled by a single platform and workflow.

Comprehensive reporting

valantic financial pilot (powered by IBM Cognos and Planning Analytics) provides monthly reports for management with all key performance indicators and business results.

Future-oriented scenario planning

The solution includes what-if planning to evaluate scenarios, such as changes in biodiesel prices, a feature that helps the company make future business decisions.

Error prevention and correction

The new solution reliably identifies planning errors and allows quick corrections, which was not possible in Excel.

Project history

The goal of the project from the beginning was to replace the Excel-based planning that had grown up over the years with an integrated, more powerful planning and reporting solution. The vision: Planners in the branch offices worldwide enter their data directly into the system via screens. The controlling department at Verbio’s headquarters in Leipzig coordinates the entire workflow and bears full responsibility. Revenue, sales, and HR planning should be done through a single solution platform and workflow.

“The valantic financial pilot (powered by IBM Cognos and IBM Planning Analytics) is a very powerful tool for planners. Among other things, we create a report for the management every month that contains all current business results and important key figures. Our aim is to control the entire P&L, turnover, sales and personnel planning via the IBM platform,” explains Thomas Kreiß, Financial Controller at Verbio.

Planning at Verbio should become more powerful, transparent, and secure. For example, errors that run under the radar in Excel for a period of time and then potentially cause planning errors should be identified and corrected quickly and reliably. Phase 1 of the project, which was launched in November 2023, was completed successfully in April 2024, and the experts from valantic and Verbio have solved the problems of segment reporting and regional reporting very well.

Verbio’s business is very complex, partly because of different greenhouse gas mitigation systems in the countries with Verbio sites. Scenario planning (what-if) for the company’s executive board and for the the purchasing and sales department, which also takes into account quantities and prices, as well as the corresponding approval workflows, are therefore still on the to-do list for the coming months. One possible scenario: How will our consolidated earnings change if we are paid not 1,000 per ton of biodiesel, but in the future 1,000 plus X euros?

The data model is ready. Now the individual data warehouse cubes that contain specific data in consolidated form must be linked to one another and evaluated so that the cube’s results are transferred automatically to the next one. Project phase 2 should be completed in April/May 2025 and will provide an ideal solution ready for productive use that is tailored to Verbio’s challenges.

Particularly noteworthy are innovative machine learning technologies and solutions using artificial intelligence, which can be implemented using the data warehouse infrastructure. This makes it possible, for example, to identify incorrectly issued invoices and detect potential fraud more quickly.

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Your Contact

Anastasios Christodoulou

Managing Director
valantic Business Analytics

+49 40 226 32 48 0