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Customers in the Spotlight

Groupe Casino

"What convinced us to select the Business Objects application ahead of the competition was its open architecture. Plus its ability to operate on a UNIX platform, the modeling capabilities using an activity-based costing method, and the ease with which data collection occurs and accounting reports can be generated and circulated via our intranet."

Joel Rouressol
Chief of Analysis
Casino IT

Challenge

Groupe Casino, France’s leading supermarket chain, with more than 7,000 stores, wanted to gain a better control of its IT costs. It created a dedicated division, Casino Information Technology (IT), to coordinate all of its computer assets under one roof. Organized into departments (Analysis, Production, Technical, Financial, etc.), Casino IT provides its IT services to all Groupe Casino subsidiaries.

Previously, Casino IT used a complex system based on data collected from various Excel spreadsheets for costing and cross-charging. This proved difficult to use for controlling the company’s activities and communicating across the entire organization.

Concerned with transparency and wishing to establish optimal cost management, Casino IT sought a reliable solution that would enable it to:

• Receive input automatically from upstream systems (measurement data, time tracking, etc.)
• Calculate the costs of services provided
• Automatically cross-charge these service costs to its 40 internal customers, based on their use of the services—with a fully detailed invoice showing how the charges were calculated

Approach

Following an in-depth evaluation process, Joel Rouressol, Casino IT chief of analysis, explains the reason for selecting Business Objects, an SAP company: "What convinced us to select the Business Objects application ahead of the competition was its open architecture. Plus its ability to operate on a UNIX platform, the modeling capabilities using an activity-based costing method, and the ease with which data collection occurs and accounting reports can be generated and circulated via our intranet."

Results

The BusinessObjects™ Profitability and Cost Management application will help Casino IT achieve its goals by ensuring that every department, branch, or subsidiary in Groupe Casino is billed with the highest degree of accuracy for the IT services it uses. Casino IT will also gain the visibility to ensure that each user becomes responsible for its consumption of IT services and has better control over the volumes of services and hardware it purchases. The application will also provide Casino IT managers with a tool for controlling costs of the projects they personally manage.

"We were sold on the product’s flexibility for modeling—as well as the ability of the Business Objects team to understand our particular requirements," says Cecile Boissonnet, administration and finance director of Casino IT. "This project falls under a global move to reshape our management methods."

• Learn more about activity-based costing
• Learn more about BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management
• Read more Business Objects retail customer success stories

Quick Facts

• Industry
  Retail
• Business pain:
  Groupe Casino, a leading supermarket chain in France, was using a complex system based on data collected from various Excel spreadsheets for costing and cross-charging—which proved difficult to use for controlling the company’s activities and communicating across the organization.
• Why Business Objects?
  Business Objects, an SAP company, offered a solution that was ahead of the competition—with its open architecture and modeling capabilities.
• Business Objects products and services:
  BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management