A New Tool to Manage Tools

The Bosch Group, founded in 1886, is a leading global supplier of technology and services. In the areas of automotive and industrial technology, consumer goods and building technology, approximately 260,000 associates generated sales of 43.7 billion euros in fiscal 2006.

The Bosch Group is made up of the Robert Bosch GmbH and its roughly 300 subsidiary and regional companies located in more than 50 countries. This worldwide development, manufacturing and sales network is the foundation for further growth and the company spends more than 3 billion euros each year for research and development with more than 3,000 patents applied for worldwide in 2006.

Specifically in North America, the Bosch Group manufactures and markets automotive original equipment and aftermarket products, industrial automation and mobile products, power tools and accessories, security technology, thermo-technology, packaging equipment and household appliances. Bosch employs 24,750 associates in more than 80 primary and 20 associated facilities throughout the region with reported sales of $8.8 billion in 2006.

Data Dilemma
With nearly 200 salespeople spread across the United States that service regional industrial accounts such as Home Depot and Lowe's, the company identified an opportunity to increase the productivity of its sales force by having a quicker and more flexible reporting tool.
 
"We receive POS [point-of-sale] data from many retail and industrial partners, including The Home Depot, Lowe's, Sears, Grainger and Wal-Mart. We receive some syndicated data from Vista regarding the lumber and hardware store channel. We receive market size data from Power Tool Institute (PTI).  We also have internal sales history managed through our ERP system and accessed through our data warehouse," says Brad Hoffman, manager - category management for Robert Bosch Tool Corporation.
 
In his role, Hoffman seeks to build greater category management expertise within the company's sales and marketing organization - the ultimate goal being a deeper, more consultative relationship with Bosch's key retail partners.

On top of the major channels mentioned, Bosch also sells its products in more localized hardware chains, as well as mom-and-pop stores across the country. Not surprisingly, this multitude of partners and volume of data could cause challenges if not managed properly, rendering any opportunity for insight impossible.

Chuck Gibson, director - sales forecasting and analysis, Robert Bosch Tool Corporation, explains, "We have a need for management level dashboard summary reporting and a platform to analyze other types of data and how it correlates to our sales performance. For example, housing starts, tax data, SIC codes, population demographics, account density and construction spending."

Gibson needs to be able to successfully manage the company's demand planning process and sales analysis for its sales team, providing account performance information to the national account teams supporting the management of Bosch's products through its distribution channels.

In addition to meeting these needs, a new solution would also have to properly integrate with SAP BW. Bosch uses this platform to manage its core data, pricing, shipments and so forth. Hoffman notes, "We currently load our Home Depot and Lowe's POS data into BW and have a large amount of data from other channels that is managed through [Microsoft] Excel and Access."

The Right Fit
According to Hoffman, the solution that meets all the company's requirements is DataAlchemy from Kenosia Corporation. He says they will use it as a hub to manage all POS and general market data. "Additionally, DataAlchemy gives us a platform that we can manage to house all our relevant data sources without working through IT. And the Microsoft PowerPoint interface is very user friendly and easy to drill down through data," he notes.

The team was trained on the new tool at the end of January 2008, and the first reports were expected by the end of the first quarter.

"We are beginning with our Home Depot and Lowe's POS data and will then move to projects around other, disparate data sources. Our expectation is that we will use this solution to experiment with a variety of data sources available in the marketplace that will give us deeper insight into business conditions and opportunities," says Hoffman.

The company's business processes involved include:
>    Executive dashboard reporting
>    Sales force management - budget planning
>    Sales calls (regional industrial accounts)
>    POS analysis
>    Field service sales calls (Home Depot and Lowe's store locations)

Gibson adds, "We are currently working toward enhancing our weekly POS summary report that is distributed with Excel. We plan to segment our SKUs into core, new and discontinued. Thus, we can easily analyze our core business without the positive and negative growth the new and discontinued SKUs give. We also plan to add multiple timeframe views, rolling eight week, rolling 52 week, etc., and a regional component to better study performance across the country."

Expected "payback" time is 12 to 18 months. Hoffman concludes, "Additionally, we see a large return on our investment through better business decisions and insight into our marketplace, which is hard to quantify."