Fresenius Medical CareSmarter planning for Quantity, Cost-Center and Sales with prevero – great user acceptance, plus significant efficiency and time gains.

Creating a future worth living for patients worldwide, every dayEvery 0.7 seconds, Fresenius Medical Care starts a dialysis treatment for a patient somewhere in the world. The company treats over 300,000 patients in approximately 3,400 clinics and is the world’s leading provider of dialysis machines, dialyzers and related disposable products.

Two of its 40 production sites are located in Germany: The dialysis machines are manufactured in

Schweinfurt, while St. Wendel produces filters, dyalizers and related equipment. With its dialysis services and machines, Fresenius Medical Care strives to enhance the quality of life of people suffering from kidney diseases. To maintain those high standards, there are a lot of behind-the-scenes processes that have to run smoothly and consistently like cogwheels. It is important to always have an overview of the number of machines, filters, tubes, liquids and valves needed by each clinic in each country. Obviously, a multitude of different factors must be taken into account. Managing this logistic feat as well as devising and implementing the corresponding plans can be a real challenge.

prevero case study

In business for people.

Customer: Fresenius Medical Care Deutschland GmbH

Size: 100,000+ employees (entire group)

Sector/industry: Pharmaceutical products and treatment

Products by prevero: prevero

Inconsistent sales and quantity planningTheresia Schnell, Head of Business Process Management, Accounting and Controlling EMEA at Fresenius Medical Care Deutschland GmbH can tell you a thing or two about the problems of inconsistent sales and quantity planning:

Theresia Schnell.

“Up to then, we had been working with two plans: a quantity-based plan devised by the supply chain and another one developed by the sales department, based on sales planning according to quantities and prices. Of course, these two plans didn’t necessarily correspond to each other. Before the introduction of the new software, the controlling department sent out Excel lists to all countries. Each country had to enter the precise quantities they were planning to sell of particular products in certain months. Afterwards, the completed lists were returned to the controllers, who tried to consolidate the figures provided by the sales department with the quantities planned in a logistics-based system.” All of this was carried out in collaboration with the management, who also brought in the production division at a later point. The consolidated Excel lists provided the basis for actual capacity planning.

Urgent need for actionPlanning cycles were carried out in the same way in about 30 countries from South Africa to Sweden. Schnell recalls: “Needless to say, there were always a lot of questions and things to be clarified. People entered all discrepancies and related comments into the Excel lists. During the peak stages of the planning cycles, the controlling department wasn’t

able to deal with anything else but sales planning – sometimes articles were planned even though they didn’t exist anymore; sometimes the wrong Excel lists were sent out, there were several lists with different revision statuses or the figures had been revised and corrected over and over.”

As this situation was tremendously inefficient for everyone involved and far from creating any added value, there was an urgent need for action. Up to that point, there had been five planning versions each year for each country. For each of those versions, quantity and sales planning alone required one employee’s full attention for a week. “In total, this process took 200 hours a year for each country. For all 30 countries, this amounts to an annual effort of 6,000 hours.” All in all, the process was much too time-consuming and error-prone.

Different views on the same issueAs the required effort was much too high compared to the quality of the results, Fresenius devised rather detailed requirement specifications for a new solution:

They were looking for a flexible, intuitive and user-friendly tool for quantity, cost center and sales planning that could handle the present complexity across all countries. One of the most important requirements was the capability to integrate sales, marketing, controlling and supply chain in one single system.

In addition to providing planning at different levels and enabling simulations and “what if” analyses, the software was required to process and verify country-specific prices and incorporate company-specific contract types. Another essential aspect was the implementation of a self-service approach, so all employees could enter figures into the system by themselves. The goal was to find a tool with a decentralized approach, capable of providing all relevant data in one single tool. Schnell: “It was crucial for us to find a way to align sales and cost center planning or, in other words, to ensure that the quantities planned by the sales department were always consistent with those priced by purchasing and sales – from a stock, production and sales perspective. We wanted a flexible solution that could help us consider the same issue from different points of view.”

2 prevero case study

Impressed by both tool and teamFresenius got in touch with a number of different BI providers, had lots of meetings, watched several presen-tations and finally agreed on a shortlist of three vendors.

There were some decisive factors for their choice:

“An aspect we liked about all three tools was their flexibility. The final decision for our new partner was mainly based on the software and its architecture, but we were also intrigued by the self-service approach and the extensive customization options. For us, some of the most important functions were a connection to the SAP system, manual upload options as well as the possibility to change stored logics and design queries in a flexible way.” Apart from the software’s technical capabilities, Fresenius liked how the prevero team approached the task at hand. According to Schnell, the team immediately knew what really mattered to Fresenius and was already able to respond to specific requirements during the selection process. Between one meeting or workshop and the next, they had already implemented functions that had been discussed and were able to present them in a compelling way.

“This proof of concept was something we perceived as extremely considerate and cooperative. It’s much easier to decide on a product if the provider can give you something to actually see and touch instead of just talking about all the things that could potentially be implemented. Another aspect that is not to be underestimated: We were impressed by prevero’s high level of professional competence, quick thinking and by the fact that they always remembered everything that had been promised or discussed. This is why we chose prevero as our new partner.”

Numerous filters and an unlimited number of dimensionsThe new software offers several planning templates and enables all employees to use the same central input forms as a basis for their planning.

Due to the great flexibility of the forms, they can be customized for the various people involved in the process: members of the sales team, employees working in the supply chain and the controlling department. Schnell: “In the planning forms, users can work with a lot of different filters. As a key accounter, for example, I carry out sales planning according to months and years. The great thing is that I can now work with as many dimensions as I like, as prevero is based on an in-memory database and is therefore not limited to a certain number of dimensions. In this way, sales figures can be recorded, planned and evaluated according to many different criteria: products, regions, sales channels, industry sectors, cost centers or countries – there are virtually unlimited options.” Fresenius recreated its company-specific structures in prevero and also established interface connections. In this way, the documents available for end users could be designed in an optimal way.

Plausibility checksWhen importing data from the SAP system, the software automatically checks whether there are new products or structures. With prevero, it is now much easier, than it was with SAP, to identify elements that cannot be allocated automatically. Moreover, the software offers plausibility checks for value fields. This means that it can be programmed to alert users if they, for example, make a typing error that results in unusually large discrepancies. They can then check whether the entered figure is correct and decide if they really want to save it like this. The software also provides check reports that can be used by controllers in each country for a final review of their figures after decentralized planning has been completed: Is the margin for a specific product as expected? Have the three new dialysis centers been included in the plan? Have the consumption quantities been adjusted accordingly?

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• Genuine partnership with a friendly, professional and on-the-ball team.

• Close participation in solution design by end users.

• A single, shared, agreed, consistent starting point for planning.

• Great levels of flexibility and scope for customization for individual needs.

• Easy, flexible import of data from SAP.

• Automated checking for data mapping exceptions and value plausibility.

• Enabling significant time and efficiency savings for more focus on value-adding activities.

Benefits

Huge time savingsSchnell: “The implementation is already well underway and we’re making excellent progress. We’re expecting to save a huge amount of time, as a lot of data no longer needs to be collected and distributed with Excel.” As a first step, the planning product is to be rolled out in 30 countries in the EMEA region. At a later point, it might also be extended to Latin America. At the moment, Sweden, Denmark and Serbia are already working with the system and Russia, England, Ireland, Finland, Estonia and several Balkan States will be included soon. By the end of 2017, 15 countries will be connected and 15 more will follow in 2018. After project completion, there will be approximately 1,000 users and 200 Power Users in 30 countries.

On the home stretchHow do the employees feel about the new solution? According to Schnell, everyone who has already seen the software is rather impressed and convinced that the tool will be a real help in the planning process. Another bonus point: All colleagues were involved in designing the software and were asked to check if all contents had been set up in the right way and if the correct dimensions had been defined. Schnell: “We’ve had nothing but positive feedback. The users are particularly impressed by the fact that all information relevant for planning is now available in one place. In the past, we spent countless hours struggling with a

long-winded planning process. Now we can use this time in a much better and more useful way.” Are they happy with the project progress and working with prevero in general? “We are now approaching the finishing line and are confident that the project will be completed successfully. After that, our planning process will be significantly more efficient.