Fueling deeper financial insight with analytics

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Big Data Analytics
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Applicable Industries

Oil & Gas

Use Cases

Process Control & Optimization

The Challenge

The Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) was facing challenges due to the increasing complexity of operations. The process of collecting, consolidating and analyzing financial data from different legal entities within different systems had become time-consuming. The central finance team at ENOC was losing days each month manually inputting and checking financial data from 31 subsidiaries. The real challenge for the central finance team was ensuring data consistency and accuracy. Manual input inevitably results in a high risk of error, and painstakingly validating data from over thirty entities each month was becoming unsustainable.

About The Customer

The Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) prides itself on providing the energy behind Dubai’s phenomenal growth. Following rapid expansion, the government-owned group now operates 31 subsidiaries worldwide, covering every aspect of the oil and gas lifecycle – from exploration and production, refining and storage to retail and marketing. As with most oil and gas companies, the need to support and manage a large and diverse group of companies that work across numerous countries is of prime importance. The central finance team at ENOC was facing challenges due to the increasing complexity of operations. The process of collecting, consolidating and analyzing financial data from different legal entities within different systems had become time-consuming.

The Solution

To streamline its complex month-end consolidation processes, ENOC chose to introduce IBM® Cognos® Controller across the group. ENOC worked closely with IBM to implement the solution and integrate it with the group’s diverse ERP systems. As a result, ENOC is now able to collect financial data from dozens of sources automatically – transforming the efficiency of its finance processes. Though some statistical values are still entered manually, ENOC has dramatically reduced the need for manual data input across the group, boosting the quality of reporting data. Additionally, the finance team can present the results in a reporting format that looks identical to its previous spreadsheet-based reports. This ensures familiarity and ease-of-use for end-users, minimizing the need for retraining.

Operational Impact

Automated data collection, elimination, translation and consolidation processes increase insight into group financial performance.
Reduced the risk of human error, and saved hours of manual work; enabling staff to focus on more value-added tasks.
Improved financial overview and insight. For example, they are now able to pinpoint how currency movements affect the results of different parts of their business.

Quantitative Benefit