Business Reporting
Stonegate Pub Company gains a single view of merged group’s finances
Project: change++ integrated financial and sales data from acquired business quickly and seamlessly.
Services: Business reporting.
Results: Stonegate Pub Company quickly gained an accurate view of group-wide performance.
The client
Stonegate Pub Company was formed in 2010 and is now the largest pub company in the UK following 12 major acquisitions, one of which was the Town and City Pub Company with its Yates and Slug & Lettuce brands. Each acquisition involves integrating the different systems and data from the acquired business.
Their needs
Following the acquisition of the Town and City Pub Company, Stonegate wanted a single view of the Group’s performance. This involved combining data from Stonegate’s existing Coda finance database with Town and City’s finance data. Integrating systems from M&A activity can be challenging as businesses use different account headings and financial calendars. Data, including sales data from EPoS systems, needs to be realigned to match the larger group’s structures and reporting requirements.
What we did
change++ has a long history of managing data integration projects and had previously worked with Town and City when its parent company acquired Yates Group. The finance and IT teams knew that change++ had both the knowledge of the business and experience of a similar exercise to be able to deliver to their timescales and budget.
Tools from IBM’s Cognos Enterprise suite are ideal for this type of integration. They can access data from the whole range of data sources present in today’s organisations and present it in the format and with the frequency required.
For the enlarged Stonegate Pub Company, change++ recommended using IBM Cognos cubes to combine data from both the Stonegate and Town and City finance systems. We realigned the financial to the new organisational structures and the new 13-period financial calendar to provide a single view across the entire estate.
Bringing data together for reporting using IBM Cognos cubes meant that Stonegate did not need to import historic data from old company systems into new systems, saving a significant amount of time and money.
Because data was imported data into existing IBM Cognos cube models, users were able to carry on running their regular reports. Data from the new company just flowed through into their existing reports, saving costs as there was no need to develop any new reports.
"[Stonegate Pub Company has] ambitious growth plans and choose partners we know can support us. change++ have proved themselves over many years and we rely on their expertise in Business Intelligence.”
- Hazell Tyrrell, Head of Central Operations at Stonegate Pub Company
The results
As a result of the work from change++, the combined IBM Cognos cubes give Stonegate head office users the capability to produce reports and analyse finance and sales (EPoS) data in their preferred format. They can analyse, report and plan with the confidence that the information is consistent and accurate.
Benefits include:
- Rapid deployment quickly gave Stonegate an accurate view of group-wide performance
- Removing the need to import historic data from old company systems saved time and money
- Confidence that analysis, reporting and planning is based on consistent and accurate data
- Familiarity with IBM Cognos reporting tools reduced the need for user training
- No business interruption as users carried on running existing reports
- Cost savings as no new reports needed to be created