With new BI tool Lavena tracks millions in sales on five continents [case study]

 “Making business decisions is an important and complex process that poses challenges to the management of the company. Making the right decisions is a guarantee for the survival of the business, and making the right decisions quickly is the key to the development of the company” – Konstantin Shalamanov, CEO of Lavena AD

Lavena is one of the pioneers in the cosmetics industry in Bulgaria. A company with 60 years of history, which imposes its brands on 5 continents and in over 40 countries around the world. Apart from the popular products for children and babies “Bochko”, the company also owns the brands “My Nature”, “Bebble”, “Maternea”, “My Rose”, “Kiki”, “Working Hands”, “Hands@Work”, “Footness” and “Sport Ready”

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Proof of the right decisions of one of the leading manufacturers of cosmetic products and lavender oil in Bulgaria is its financial results. In 2022, Lavena’s sales will exceed BGN 21 million, representing a 15% year-on-year increase.

With its own plantations, distillery, and laboratory, the company manages to produce 50 tons of quality lavender oil per year, which ranks it among the leading lavender oil producers in the world.

How do you track millions in sales across five continents?

Lavena has always relied on software and digital transformation has been part of the company’s development. Therefore, the necessary information has always been available.

However, access to it, the resources to use it, and its accuracy proved to be a challenge. Generating the required information took longer, and scope of the reports was more modest. Each additional cut required additional time resources.

Information is needed for decisions to be correct. Usually, this is done based on analysis of existing information. Therefore, we decided that by investing in a BI project, we would get speed and convenience in obtaining the necessary information,” says Konstantin Shalamanov.

On the other hand, the possibility of presenting the information in depth or in different dimensions would make it much easier to analyze it, which would greatly increase the efficiency of business decisions.

The choice of software and consultant

Lavena took a professional approach to the selection of the BI tool. They researched the products available on the market and evaluated their advantages given the resources available in the company. They tried to imagine the benefits of the BI system in the company’s future development. Thus, the Lavena team assigned to work on the project evaluated the effectiveness of Qlik and the convenience of using the BI tool.

The system provides two installation options – on-premises at the client (on-premises, Client-Managed) and in the cloud (SaaS). Lavena preferred the cloud version of the BI software Qlik Sense.

During the research process, the company sought the opinion of other companies using BI systems, as well as the opinion of industry professionals.

“It was important for us that the product provider understood our needs, advised us through the implementation process, and was a partner to us, rather than just selling us a product. That is why Balkan Services’ experience and good reputation in the market was crucial,” says the CEO of Lavena.

How do discounts affect sales?

The idea of the project is to develop and deploy within 2022 a functioning BI tool that will extract, process, and load daily up-to-date sales data for Lavena.

The project starts with the business area “Sales”. Its scope includes a basic dashboard (the so-called Dashboard) at the company level, the ability to customize reports to individual needs, product analysis, customer analysis, discount analysis, geo-analysis, and receivables.

“We offered an end-to-end solution that comprised certain analytics and reports that were appropriate for a business like theirs. What the Lavena team brought was related to the topic of ‘Discount Analysis by Customer and Line of Business’, as their business operates with discounts,” explains Naeri Masihi, Head of Project Management at Balkan Services.

In this context, it is important to note that Lavena applies different trade discounts when working with clients – monthly, quarterly, and annual, which is why it was important for the company to be able to analyze these discounts and their effect on sales.

In addition to discount analysis, Lavena’s BI system has the mandatory components, metrics, and characteristics that are valid for any business – product mix (needs product analysis), customers (needs customer analysis), distribution (based on geography and locations).

The five stages of the project

The implementation of the joint BI project with Lavena goes through five consecutive stages:

Project work started mid-May 2022 with a series of working sessions to extract user requirements. Their purpose is to specify the scope of the project and the expected outcome. By mid-July 2022, the project framework has been approved.

In August 2022, the preparation of the two teams to start the project is underway – team formation, project planning, technical preparation, and setup.

At the beginning of September 2022, work on implementing the BI system starts. November 16 is the date on which the significant “Go-live” event for the project is marked.

“Over the course of the project, we delivered components in stages to the customer to be tested by users of the BI system. This way we got faster and frequent feedback and adapted to their requirements to move in the right direction,” says Naeri Masihi.

For easier orientation in the user interface and learning of basic functionalities, our team conducts training of BI system users at Lavena.

In the subsequent 5 weeks from the BI system release date in a production environment, users adapt to working with the new reporting tool. The project ends as planned before the Christmas holidays.

From the beginning of 2023, the after-sales service will start to ensure the process of support and assistance to users, maintenance, and upgrading of the new business intelligence system put into operation.

Focus on the end goal

“It was a challenge not to ‘go with the flow’ of newly emerging issues that distracted us from the end goal, but to be focused on what we had set out to do at the beginning,” explains Naeri Masihi.

Thus, structuring the requirements and defining the core and mandatory components to shape and refine a scope and objectives that would be realistic and achievable within the desired budget and timeframe became a major challenge for the project.

“A major challenge for the project was structuring the large amount of information to refine the scope so that we did not embark on an impossible project. Therefore, translating desirable into achievable goals was a very important part of the project. Meeting deadlines on both sides is always a challenge. Effective communication between teams is needed to solve these challenges,” Konstantin Shalamanov.

The final result

Lavena has a BI tool with pre-defined reports and analytics, as well as a flexible generator that enables the end user to quickly and easily create the design of their report themselves – choosing what features, metrics, and filters to include.

“It’s a capability with a lot of options,” summarises Naeri Masihi from our team.

It's important to note that users get daily reports based on up-to-date data, and the ability to save different selections saves time.

Users of the BI software at the moment are the management of the company and the employees of the financial and accounting and sales department of Lavena.

“The entire management team has received an effective tool for analysis and decision-making. All users of the system now have reliable and timely information to better manage sales processes, to more quickly identify problem areas, and make timely decisions. It can be difficult to put a price on time for this,” says Konstantin Shalamanov, CEO of Lavena.

He points out that the 4 most important key metrics for that he monitors daily in the BI system are:

• Sales compared to set targets and past periods;
           
• Profitability of sales by customers/markets/products;
           
• Effectiveness of the implemented policy;
           
• Top sales and margin by customer and item.

The professional training and attitude of the work teams

The approach of the teams of both companies to the project is similar and this helps a lot when working together, both teams are very clear that during the implementation of the project they work as one.

The team of Lavena is easy to work with, they are strict, always responded on time and in very short deadlines” commented Nikolay Petrov, Senior BI consultant from our team about the joint work.

The experience and professionalism of the Balkan Services team combine very well with the resourcefulness and flexibility of the Lavena team. We tried to be as honest, efficient, and fast as possible. This allowed us to implement the project in the desired scope, and timeframe”, summarizes the success factors Konstantin Shalamanov, CEO of Lavena.

Here it is important to note that our team uses in-house expertise developed based on years of experience and successfully completed over 420 BI projects. The consultants who worked on the project from our side are very familiar with the basic reports, analyses, and key indicators needed for analyzing Lavena’s sales.

“Gross/net sales quantity, gross/net margin in value and percentage, gross/net price, price in promotion, average price, planned units and values, active customers, ‘asleep’ customers, the average number of items in invoice, receivables and delinquencies – these are all metrics that are common, familiar to us, and we know they are needed,” says Naeri Masihi.

He adds that even with universally valid metrics and characteristics, and generally familiar reports, the necessary time and attention is given to the process of validating and confirming definitions so that specifics are not missed in the company’s business rules and practices.

“The role of project management was to structure, organize, coordinate and communicate what Lavena needed so that the company’s management had the peace of mind that what was invested in terms of time, and finances would lead to the desired end result,” she adds.

According to Naeri’s observations, this is one of Balkan Services’ projects with a client that knows exactly what it wants and is clear about what it wishes to achieve with the project.

Extending the BI project beyond sales

As the potential of the BI system is explored, new ideas for application and expansion of analyses emerge. The next steps toward upgrading the BI system include expanding the scope of the project to more users so that as many people in the company as possible have the information they need promptly.

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