The giant of cosmetics L'oreal shared the story of their financial transformation with AI

L'oréal, one of the beauty brands of the world's largest, needed to unify their financial data, systems, processes and analysis in many divisions and countries. “We had many local solutions for users with data processing and revenue manual,” says Laurent Mesnier, manager of the information systems of Financial Planning & Analytics (FP&A) in L'oreal, “but we didn't have the ability to share the data between us. We lacked a common language about data and processes, which led to problems of quality”. To ensure sound governance and the accuracy of the data, the team of FP&a TO L'oreal took the critical decision for the business to launch a single analysis platform based centralized solutions from IBM to serve more than 2500 users all over the world.

To address the challenges of data and analysis practices in silos

Global organizations to decentralized with many departments often face challenges of control and governance. With thousands of users spread across different geographies, using a variety of tools and generate many different types of reports, maintain financial oversight can be costly. Interoperability, the different local regulations and the manual processes that consume a lot of time to create concerns about the quality control, the responsibility and, ultimately, the competitiveness, which limits the commercial potential.

To quickly respond to opportunities and threats of the market, global organizations need a holistic view of the financial processes. Equally important, they need to provide experiences of successful collaborative for employees and partners, achieved through the exchange and improvement of best practices and the acceleration and simplification of complex processes. Standardization, automation, business analysis, and advanced displays offer powerful tools to achieve these goals.

Using tools of business analysis to get the job done

“We started a global project to build a unique system and harmonize the data to a unique vision and consistent in the business”, says Laurent Mesnier. By working with IBM, L'oreal has developed a proprietary tool called COMPASS, which centralizes and standardizes the data by using IBM Planning Analytics with Watson and Cognos Analytics.

To quickly respond to opportunities and threats of the market, global organizations need a holistic view of the financial processes. Equally important, they need to provide experiences of successful collaborative for employees and partners, achieved through the exchange and improvement of best practices and the acceleration and simplification of complex processes. Standardization, automation, business analysis, and advanced displays offer powerful tools to achieve these goals.

Using tools of business analysis to get the job done

“We started a global project to build a unique system and harmonize the data to a unique vision and consistent in the business”, says Laurent Mesnier. By working with IBM, L'oreal has developed a proprietary tool called COMPASS, which centralizes and standardizes the data by using IBM Planning Analytics with Watson and Cognos Analytics.

Mesnier explained how the solutions COMPASS and IBM work together: “we Use Planning Analytics and Cognos Analytics to create a unique system for financial purposes, which deals with the simulation and the generation of reports for the daily processes of the drivers in different regional levels. For example, local controllers use standardized processes to perform simulations and COMPASS is a comprehensive information source and harmonised use.”

To implement the project, COMPASS, L'oreal faced a daunting challenge. How could the company to harmonize and centralize the financial processes in a user base as large and diverse? With a government strong financial and technical expertise proper at the table, L'oreal was able to make this vision a reality.

Partnering to improve the user experience today and in the future

L'oreal has about 2500 users in Planning Analytics with Watson running around 200 000 reports each month; the use COMPASS, users enjoy a live view of your data. “Our instances larger Planning Analytics are close to a terabyte,” says Mesnier, “and our library has around 1000 complex reports available to end-users. Thanks to this, the COMPASS is generating a high level of confidence in the financial figures”.

To improve the integration of Cognos Planning and Analytics with Watson with COMPASS, teams analysis of L'oreal received feedback from their users and provided ongoing feedback to IBM. With this information, IBM has been able to incorporate improvements in the customer experience directly in the roadmaps of the product.

Laurent Mesnier awaits with interest the latest version of  Cognos 11.1.7 . “We are very interested in the boards with the 11.1.7; they are much more powerful, and we believe that is tailored to our needs more demanding”. The team of L'oreal also looks forward to the continuous improvements of the product. Planning Analytics Workspace includes dramatic improvements in its latest version, with IBM working to apply AI to sources of multidimensional data. Users will be able to get deeper knowledge with greater ease, speed and accuracy to be a solution of analysis centralized infused with AI with the tools of the appropriate government.

How to adopt AI: AI Ladder IBM

IBM helps brands such as L'oréal to prepare their data for AI in the hybrid cloud and virtualized environments. With Ladder to AI™ , IBM has developed a prescriptive approach to help customers accelerate their journey to AI. Conceived as a series of rungs on a ladder, each step deals with critical milestones in that journey.

Because they make operational the AI in all the business processes, Planning Analytics with Watson and Cognos occupy the  step Infuse . Planning Analytics with Watson helps clients to automate the processes of planning, forecasting and budgeting, while Cognos Analytics makes the preparation, analysis, and reporting of data to be faster and smarter.

Continuing your journey: adopting AI

Although the AI is a technology of transformation defining, the successful adoption remains a challenge. With AI built-in solutions, such as Planning Analytics with Watson and Cognos, users can adopt the AI without any problems and get the most accurate results in less time. Learn more about how IBM is helping clients adopt AI.

For more information about the experience of L'oreal with Planning Analytics with Watson and Cognos in your journey to AI, just contact us to know the challenges that face the office of finance of your company.