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IBM > Case Studies > Aligning sales, marketing, supply chain and operations to boost market share with IBM Analytics

Aligning sales, marketing, supply chain and operations to boost market share with IBM Analytics

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics

Applicable Industries

Automotive

Applicable Functions

Sales & Marketing
Logistics & Transportation

Use Cases

Supply Chain Visibility
Demand Planning & Forecasting

Services

Data Science Services

The Challenge

Nissan Australia, a company that imports, markets, and sells Nissan vehicles, was facing a complex challenge of coordinating the importation of thousands of vehicles in hundreds of different models, grades, colors, and configurations to meet varying customer demands in different regions. The company's car flow planning process revolved around a legacy planning tool, supplemented by spreadsheets. The use of spreadsheets made version control difficult, which was a particular problem because the company’s car flow is constantly evolving. The company needed a more sophisticated business planning platform to upgrade its car flow forecasting process.

About The Customer

Nissan Australia is a company that imports, markets, and sells Nissan vehicles. The company specializes in the Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV), Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV), and passenger car segments. Nissan Australia aims to gain a significant market share of the approximately 1.1 million new cars sold annually in Australia. The company sets its targets based on the market share it wants to achieve in each of the vehicle categories in which it competes. It then plans what it calls the 'car flow'—the process of ordering, importing, and delivering cars to its dealerships around the country—to achieve those targets.

The Solution

Nissan Australia decided to upgrade its car flow forecasting process by adopting a more sophisticated business planning platform. The company worked with Cornerstone, an IBM Premier Business Partner that specializes in performance management and analytics solutions, to build a basic car flow model based on data from its ERP system as a proof-of-concept. The success of this project helped to build a business case for a full-scale deployment. The new IBM Cognos Express car flow model gives Nissan Australia a much more granular level of insight across all the different grades of each car, all of the colors, and even the dates when each vehicle is imported. The vehicles’ production month is crucial to help the company keep its profit and loss forecasts accurate when currency movements occur.

Operational Impact

The IBM Cognos Express solution is expected to make Nissan Australia's whole car flow management and forecasting process much more efficient.
The solution is helping Nissan Australia to forecast profit and loss much more accurately, based on a car flow model that gives a much more precise view of current orders, lead times, and inventory.