THE COMPANY
Mitsubishi Electric is a global leader in the research, manufacturing and marketing of electrical and electronic equipment used in communications, consumer electronics, industrial technology, energy and transportation,

Mitsubishi Electric Ltd has 6 divisions within which it operates: Living Environmental Systems (LES) more commercially know as air conditioning systems, Factory Automation (FA), Visual Information Systems (VIS), Diamond Vision (DV), Lift & Escalator Division (LED) and Automotive

THE CHALLENGES
Having already implemented BOARD to provide integrated self service Business Intelligence (reporting, analysis, drill down, dashboards, etc.), Mitsubishi’s LES Division, realised that they need to apply a similarly integrated, easy to use approach to Budgeting, Planning and Forecasting
Previously a 3rd party tool was used to write the budget, subsequently complicated and difficult to control spreadsheets were issued to each division. Divisional budgets would be then be created, generating even more spreadsheets, before being loaded into the 3rd party software. The process was time-consuming, prone to error and could only be analysed to the aggregated level of Cost or Profit Centre.

The need for a solution which gave greater control, audit, accuracy and speed would provide immediate business benefits across the supply chain.

THE SOLUTION
BOARD provides Mitsubishi Electric with a fully integrated, flexible, scalable and easy to use system which is reliable and synchronized daily with all relevant core business systems, such as SAP, CRM and other external data sources. This has enabled deep, cross business insight with rapid data integration.


Budgeting and Forecasting Application
BOARD has ensured that Mitsubishi’s planning process is accurate and timely and centered around existing business processes, utilizing BOARD’s in-built write-back and workflow functionality.

The planning process at Mitsubishi has been re-engineered and a new Budgeting and Forecasting solution delivered utilizing BOARD, that includes the following steps:

• Units quantity planning for fiscal year
• Units quantity definition for each month
• Price and Cost Management
• Sales Channel allocation
• Discounts Management
• Final Forecast/Budget and Reporting

Using BOARD, Mitsubishi have empowered their users and extended the capabilities of Planning. Users can now allocate forecasts down to Material level, manage prices and costs, allocate figures by sales channels, plan discounts and ultimately calculate P & L and general stock projections.

Through a systematic organization of the planning process and the powerful simulation capabilities of scenario and time period definition, preparing the budget and forecast has become a simple, transparent and accessible process.

Stock Quantity Forecasting
Stock Quantity Forecasting of Actual and required stock quantities based on available stock, future purchase orders and future sales orders has resulted in the following benefits for Mitsubishi:

• Elimination of lengthy weekly manual processes
• Improved insight into current stock availability
• Forecasting capabilities for quantity of stock to order, when
• Improved efficiency, customer service and cash flow
• Improved order fulfillment, benefitting sales

BUSINESS BENEFITS
The implementation and continued expansion of the BOARD toolkit has delivered a multitude of different business benefits to Mitsubishi Electric, including:

• Streamlining of the sales analysis and mark down planning processes from days to minutes
• Speeded up the delivery of information to the business/management
• Ensured flexibility and made it quick and easy to manage new requirements
• Freed up the time of the IT department and allowed them to deliver more value add projects
• Allowed users to focus on their true roles of analysis and management instead of data maintenance

As a consequence valuable knowledge and information is easily shared and updated and lends support to better, more informed decision making.

Due to the continued success and ongoing benefits of BOARD, Mitsubishi Electric have extended the use of the BOARD to other European countries, France, Germany and Ireland, with further deployment expected in Spain and Portugal shortly.