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"With BusinessObjects Performance Optimization, budgeting changes can be input, evaluated, and agreed upon quickly. So there’s no longer an excuse for disagreements as the picture is far clearer, and any holes in the budget are identified quickly."

David Hart
financial controller
BDL Group

Challenge

BDL is a privately owned hotel group that owns and operates hotels under the brands Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Express by Holiday Inn, and Ramada Encore. The company was founded in 1997 and from there has continued to develop and buy hotels.

In 2004, after doubling its size within just two years, BDL realized it needed to seriously develop its planning and budgeting process. "The problem was that we couldn't see the wood for the trees," explains David Hart, financial controller at BDL. "The group's central management team was sending out a master budgeting spreadsheet to all the different hotels, which was then coming back in completely different formats, depending on each separate hotel's processes. As our growth rate began to accelerate, we quickly realized that the system would soon become unworkable from a management perspective."

As the company continued to grow, the increased number of units to be managed meant increased complexity and, as it was, the budgeting process was slow - taking at least six months to complete. In addition, there were problems with the accessibility and integrity of the data being collected, leading to an overreliance on individuals who had the detailed knowledge to ensure the process worked.

Approach

Clearly, the company needed to improve its budgeting system. So it narrowed in on three potential solutions: BusinessObjects Performance Optimization, Dillon Technology Prophet, and Systems Union Hospitality Performance Management. After presentations, discussions, and costings from all three companies, BDL unanimously decided that BusinessObjects Performance Optimization offered the most appropriate solution, for three reasons. "First," says Hart, "Business Objects was seen as the best fit for BDL - a young, successfully growing company much like ourselves. Second, our wish for a model tailored to our business seemed to be the whole idea behind Performance Optimization. Finally, Business Objects offered the best value against breadth of functionality provided by the system."

So, in 2005, the company embarked on a program of budgeting and forecasting process improvement, using BusinessObjects Performance Optimization system. Once a plan of action was agreed upon, the implementation team had only two months to get the software up and running in time for the start of the next budgeting cycle - in August. "It was a tall order getting the system up and running in such a short time," says Hart. "But thanks to the flexibility of the Business Objects team and an exceptional amount of work by our implementation team, we managed to get the basics in place in time."

Results

With Performance Optimization, BDL now has live access to information that each hotel in the group inputs - in addition to full control over the formatting of that information. The results are greater control and a clearer view of the business, so that BDL can now separate departmental responsibilities into the hotel specialist areas. Any individual line items can also be analyzed and reported on in any manner desired - by period, hotel, and year, for example - enabling far superior, yet simpler and quicker, analysis across the group than was ever available before.

BDL also has far greater access to data and reports over the Web. This enables the central team to produce key performance indicator (KPI) reports that compare actual costs against budget, year on year.

In addition, the introduction of the new budgeting and forecasting system has improved understanding of the budgeting process itself across the business. It has created an "open" environment, as performance data is available to all management. In turn, this has helped improve the drive for greater profitability and cost control across the group. "What the new system does is starkly contrast those costs that are the responsibility of local management and those managed elsewhere," explains Hart. "General managers now have greater insight into the level of detailed planning that is done by other parts of the business, to ensure adequate cost control and consistency of service delivery."

For the finance team, however, the disciplines that BusinessObjects Performance Optimization brings - especially in the field of version control - have had the most impact. "The extent to which assumptions have been changed is now clear," says Hart. "Because any budgeting changes can be input, evaluated, and agreed upon quickly - then captured and locked down in the system. So there's no longer an excuse for disagreements as the picture is far clearer, and any holes in the budget are identified quickly."

The implementation of Performance Optimization at BDL is complete, and, according to Hart, benefits of the system are still being realized. "We're really starting to reap the rewards of a much smoother infrastructure," he says, "and I’m confident that, as we continue to grow, we'll see even greater returns on our investment."

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Quick Facts

• Industry:
  Hospitality
• Business pain:
  After doubling its size in just two years, BDL realized that its planning and budgeting system was becoming unworkable from a management perspective. It needed real-time, centrally managed budgeting and forecasting processes that would enable BDL to successfully manage its growth and plan for the future.
• Why Business Objects?
  BDL saw Business Objects as a young, successful company - much like itself - that offered the best value against breadth of functionality.
• Business Objects products and services
  BusinessObjects Performance Optimization