Airtricity, the renewable energy specialist has selected Cognos for reporting and financial planning across its business. Using Cognos reporting, three different business groups in four countries can now access the same real-time information. As a result, all groups benefit from a management reporting package that covers profit and loss, cashflow and important analysis of financial Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as risk and key business metrics such as overheads. The implementation, says Cognos, has reduced the effort to build the reporting pack from three man-days to just one.
The green energy developer, generator and supplier, worked with Cognos partners ProStrategy and Réiteach Systems, to speed up reporting and create a single version of readily available financial information. Since Airtricity operates in a highly competitive market, it is essential to regularly update business plans to ensure alignment with industry developments. With Cognos Planning, Airtricity has also cut the time needed to plan its operational strategy from several weeks to ten working days. Plans for wind farm construction and generation, retail supply and HR that need to be pulled together for financial planning are now available in a fraction of the time previously taken.
"With Cognos, now we can actually analyse our numbers and understand how they impact our business, rather than spending several weeks simply pulling the information together," said Donal Flynn, Group financial controller at Airtricity. "Cognos was one of the only companies in the market to be able to offer us a complete performance management package, with the expertise to deliver on it. We've now given our business unit managers far more power to analyse and act upon accurate information."
"As attention increasingly turns towards the energy market and the importance of renewable energy, it's vital that Airtricity can concentrate on its core competencies, rather than churning data," said Graham Walter, vice-president of UK , Middle East and South Africa at Cognos. "With a full performance management solution in place, staff will be able to both report back and plan efficiently, working from one accurate and up-to-the-minute information source. This will allow them to analyse the data to drive business strategy, rather than simply inputting it into the system."
