SAP Case Study

BARILLA WASA:
IDENTIFYING
MEASURABLE VALUE
WITH mySAP CRM

AT A GLANCE
Strategic Goals:
Defend market leadership position

Improve already excellent customer service by supporting

the mobile sales force with central information
management

Differentiate through individualized customer service and

fast, flexible promotion management
Approach:
To improve the efficiency of its mobile sales force, giving
them access to detailed customer data, Barilla Wasa
Germany GmbH designed an implementation strategy to
integrate new customer relationship management functions
with its SAP back-end infrastructure. The first solution to
be implemented was SAP Mobile Sales, the SAP packaged
solution that offers mobile support for the activities of its
sales force and office-based personnel. Later, Barilla Wasa
management decided to engage SAP Consulting to conduct
a cost/benefit analysis of the present implementation and
planned enhancements. Numerous qualitative and quantitative improvements were identified, focusing on targeted
campaign management and integrated sales and production
planning. The potential value of the investment in the
mySAP Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM)
solution was calculated according to reduced IT costs,
increased process efficiency, and better planning of promotional campaigns. As a result, Barilla Wasa has been able to
assess and plan further enhancements to its SAP solutions
based on quantifiable data.

Abstract:
With the production start of SAP Mobile Sales in the fall of
2003, Barilla Wasa Germany GmbH laid the cornerstone for
an intelligent customer relationship management solution.
The application is based on mySAP CRM, integrated with
mySAP ERP and SAP Business Intelligence, a component
of the SAP NetWeaver platform.

As part of a cost/benefit analysis, management consultants

from SAP Consulting examined the cost-effectiveness of
mySAP CRM and analyzed the value of planned enhancements. Numerous qualitative and quantitative improvements
were identified, focusing on targeted campaign management
and integrated sales and production planning. The measurable value that these improvements have brought Barilla Wasa
confirms the cost-effectiveness of the solution. And after the
planned international rollout of these CRM processes and
the related economies of scale, this value is likely to increase.

PAPPARDELLE AND CRISPBREAD

Whether spaghetti, pappardelle, or fettuccine Barilla is a leading name when it comes to pasta. The various brands owned
by the Barilla Group, the worlds largest pasta manufacturer,
are synonymous with the Mediterranean. Those brands include
pasta sauces and baked goods including cookies, pastries, and
cakes as well as Wasa-brand crispbread from the Swedish
company Wasabrd, which has been owned by the Barilla Group
since 1999. The Barilla Group encompasses 29 factories and
production facilities, 17 of which are in Italy and 12 abroad.
These sites include mills, pasta factories, and bakeries, as well as
frozen product and ready-made meal production lines. Barilla
products are exported to over 100 countries around the world.
Barilla Group companies include Barilla Wasa Germany GmbH.
Headquartered in Cologne, Germany, Barilla Wasa unites
Mediterranean pasta and Nordic baked goods under one roof.
The company employs about 350 people and supplies various
trade channels with these goods, some of which are manufactured at a production facility in Celle, Germany.
AIMING FOR MARKET LEADERSHIP

Barilla Wasas goal is clear: to be the market leader. Supporting

that goal is a high-performance IT system, with a back end
based on an SAP application landscape and run centrally at the
SAP Customer Competence Center in Celle. From here, end
users in Barilla Group companies in Germany and eight other
European countries are supplied with SAP applications and
services.
Barilla Wasas market activities are characterized by excellent
customer orientation, which makes the role of its external sales
force particularly significant. When it became clear that the
existing sales solution no longer met functional or technological requirements, Barilla Wasa conducted an intensive selection
process for a replacement. Of six applications considered,

mySAP Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM)

came out on top. Both our business targets and our strategic
IT goals were best served with mySAP CRM, says IT director
Heinrich Buchholz. The implementation took place in 2003.
By implementing mySAP CRM, Barilla Wasa aimed for
increased transparency and a more efficient account management, supported by central information management and distribution. To accomplish this, we needed access to detailed
customer data in all areas, says Buchholz. mySAP CRM aims at
enabling individual customer service, fast and flexible promotion management, and optimized planning and controlling
processes. At Barilla Wasa, mySAP CRM is also key to IT strategy: it houses a CRM platform with state-of-the-art technology
that may at some point be transferred to other Barilla Group
locations worldwide.

SYNCHRONIZING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP

MANAGEMENT AND DATA MANAGEMENT

In order to create seamless data flow for analysis, evaluations,

and reporting, Barilla Wasa integrated mySAP CRM with the
data warehousing component of SAP Business Intelligence
(SAP BI). Integration was simplified by the standardized connection of mySAP CRM to SAP BI, which supports the reporting function at Barilla Wasa. Immediately after the production
start, the project team began to methodologically evaluate the
data entered by the external sales force and deliver the results
in the form of standardized reports to company and sales management. The next step was to implement the net sales planning
process, which allows consistent central management of the
overall annual planning of sales volumes, budgets, and customer
groups.
PROMOTION MANAGEMENT

IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY:
CLOSE INTEGRATION WITH SAP INFRASTRUCTURE

From the beginning, Barilla Wasa designed its implementation

strategy intending to integrate new CRM applications with
the SAP back-end infrastructure. The first solution to be implemented was SAP Mobile Sales, the SAP packaged solution that
offers mobile support for all relevant sales activities.
With external support from SAP Consulting and Atos Origin,
Barilla Wasa completed the implementation project in one year
from the blueprint to production start. Implementation was
right on budget and completed almost within the projected
time frame, says Buchholz. The project team found the tasks
of implementing and mastering the distributed system landscape particularly challenging, but was able to complete them
and a number of customer-specific enhancements and modifications without delay, thanks to the climate of cooperation
between internal employees and external consultants.
Aside from a few exceptions, we consistently kept to the SAP
standard, Buchholz adds.

Barilla Wasas promotion management strategy is defined by

the same principles governing its CRM strategy central information management and distribution. This strategy will enable
Barilla Wasa to benefit from a highly integrated and up-to-date
promotional database which covers all relevant information,
including customer, product, campaign management, time
frame, and conditions data, both during the campaign and the
evaluation phases.
Buchholz says that mySAP CRM has so far achieved positive
effects. The new system was well received by users, support
costs are low, and integration into the existing SAP landscape
was trouble-free. In addition, establishing an IT strategy centering on SAP has created additional value for the IT department:
the solution architecture can be scaled all over Europe without
significant cost, reducing administration and support costs.
Beyond these notable accomplishments, however, Barilla Wasa
management wanted to further investigate the value of the
investment.

SAP VALUE ASSESSMENT:

PUTTING COST/BENEFIT TO THE TEST

In 2004, after some months of production use, Barilla Wasa

management decided to conduct a cost/benefit analysis of
the present implementation and planned enhancements.
Management consultants from SAP Consulting took on the
task of performing a value assessment. The analysis looked
at both the already-implemented external sales force solution
and the pending enhancements for promotion management
and sales and demand planning.
PROCESSES AND SCENARIOS EXAMINED

Account Management
In addition to centrally planned promotions, Barilla Wasas
account managers also conduct promotions independently
(second placements, for example). Before the new solution
was implemented, the planned route for each promotion was
manually modified by the sales reps before being entered into
the system. The sales reps then entered orders and certain other
data directly during customer sales calls. Sales call reports were
created at a later stage and then summarized manually by the
regional sales manager. The analysts determined that one of the
weak points of the legacy software was lack of support for easy
entry of point-of-sale data. With the high level of automation
afforded by the new solution, regional sales managers no longer
have to manually create reports and enter data, and Barilla
Wasa is consistently supplied with real-time market data.

Communication

Route
Planning

Visits

Planning

mySAP CRM
Barilla Wasa
Reporting/
Analyses

Orders

Listing

Collections

Figure 1: The extent of mySAP CRM implementation

Promotion Management
Sales planning and campaign management meet where the
quantities intended to be sold by product promotions are
mapped out. The number and scope of promotions at Barilla
Wasa are planned by the controlling, trade marketing, and sales
departments, using a top-down approach. After central negotiations are conducted at the customer level, the sales force
executes the campaigns within the local markets based on fixed
schedules. The analysis established that difficulties with distributing information and inadequate evaluation of promotion
results and promotion history were weak points in the process.
Trade promotion management, which is supported by mySAP
CRM, now enables Barilla Wasa to create structured evaluations
of individual promotions using measurable criteria. The goal of
these evaluations is to systematically optimize the promotion
portfolio for the customer sell-in.
Sales Planning and Demand Planning
At Barilla Wasa, sales and demand planning is carried out annually and updated quarterly, and involves organizational units
such as controlling and key account management. The analysis
pointed out the disadvantages of this process, which was

completed using only Microsoft Excel: low integration with follow-up activities, insufficient analysis and simulation options,
and frequent errors. With the implementation of SAP-based
sales and demand planning, Barilla Wasa will achieve its goal
of ensuring high accuracy in planning and forecasting.
QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE BENEFITS

Over the course of a cost/benefit analysis, SAP Consulting identified the business processes with potential for improvement
and separated them into two categories quality improvements
and quantity improvements. The consultants also identified
potential value items involving organizational units value that
Barilla Wasa is now tapping with mySAP CRM.
Sales Reps/Regional Account Managers
The ability to enter statistical orders from customers with
central warehouses gives the sales force the ability to access
previous orders and better influence the order behavior of
associated markets.
The
integrated sales call and route planning functionality

allows the external sales reps and regional managers to adjust

visit and route schedules and automatically transmit
standardized market data and daily reports on sales calls
made, increasing productive sales time.
Order changes and customer-specific assortment lists can be
updated centrally and are available to those needing them
immediately.
Key Account Management/Trade Marketing
Structured planning of promotions in terms of time periods,
quantities, conditions, budgets, and participating accounts
or outlets means more transparency and makes deviations
from the plans easily traceable (that is, the profitability of
promotions).
The transparency and availability of customer analyses enable
better recognition of additional sales potential.
Quarterly sales rounds can be planned more precisely and
the distribution of products can be examined more effectively.
This information is complemented by external panel data,
which is vital to the success of new product launches.

Controlling/Production and Demand Planning

The central, integrative approach to the overall annual planning process means that planning data from various departments (sales, trade marketing, production planning) can be
broken down to product groups, brands, and customers at
any hierarchy level.
Consistency and versioning are ensured, despite constant
modification and rolling planning rounds. This enables
flexible simulation of the effects of various planned quantity
scenarios on the budget.
Planning accuracy is improved by more structured processes,
which translates to a higher service level, lower out-of-stock
rates, and optimization of warehouse, transportation, and
distribution costs.
STRUCTURED DATA ENTRY FOR BETTER
DECISION MAKING

With the sales force processes it has already implemented,

Barilla Wasa focused on structured market data entry. Where
once only sporadic, selective ad hoc evaluations of prices, distribution, shelf space, and out-of-stock goods were available,
Barilla Wasa now has access to reports from all sales regions and
districts.
The data recorded by each sales rep per sales call is available
at the touch of a button in the form of analytical customer
reports. These reports provide a solid basis for making decisions
on issues such as future customer development, territory and
sales area definition, and so forth.
Internal organizational units such as trade marketing and key
account management can also use this data. The increased
availability, comparability, quality, and granularity of the data
recorded obviates the need for further inquiries and manual
writing of mobile sales reports by regional sales managers.
The solution provides significantly improved transparency into
processes through consistent linking of operative sales data to
standardized, customer-specific analysis.

ANALYSIS OF THE INVESTMENT

THE VALUE OF mySAP CRM

Cost is a significant factor in a value assessment. Depending on

the implementation strategy, the cost of implementation can be
divided into costs already incurred and costs forecast for the
future.

The potential value of mySAP CRM is calculated using three

individual categories, each with its own use:
Reduced IT costs compared to legacy systems (licenses,
maintenance, administration, consulting, interfaces)
Increased
process efficiency in customer service, sales and

demand planning, key account management, and sales

force/regional sales manager processes. Additionally, the
effects of increased data quality through a reduction in inconsistencies, elimination of multiple entries, and a lower error
rate due to erroneous data can also be seen here.
Better
planning and the sale of promotional quantities of

goods at strategically low prices can promote revenue growth.

With the transparency of trading partner performance
provided by mySAP CRM, Barilla Wasa is now able to recognize incorrectly set conditions.

Distribution of Investment 2003 2005

Support
13%

Software and
maintenance
35%

Hardware and
laptops
20%

Implementation
32%

Value Distribution

100%

Figure 2: Total cost distribution as percentages

11%
44%

80%
60%

Figure 2 outlines the composition of total costs in percentages,

calculated for about 60 users at Barilla Wasa Germany. Hardware
costs encompass server systems and notebooks. Software costs
include licensing fees and maintenance costs. Implementation
costs cover both consulting and user training. Support costs
represent one full-time employee. In addition, the solution
from the German organization was used as a template for the
Swedish Mobile Sales implementation.

40%

45%

20%
0%

Revenue

Processes

IT

Figure 3: Total potential value of CRM at Barilla Wasa as a percentage

Individual attributable gains (payback payment times) were set

to the year after implementation, representing the time that the
actual value of the solution first began to be realized. This led to
a double-digit ROI with respect to the internal rate of return.

THE FOUR STEPS TO SUCCESS

NEXT STEPS

Barilla Wasas successful SAP implementation strategy was based

on four principles, each of which has proven to be key to success.

Barilla Wasa intends to further enhance reporting functionality

and integrate mySAP CRM and SAP Business Information
Warehouse more closely with mySAP ERP. Another important
component of Barilla Wasas CRM structure planned for implementation is SAP Strategic Enterprise Management and its business planning and simulation capability. Additional functional
enhancements may include the campaign management
functionality within mySAP CRM, a solution that is already
implemented at the Swedish organization.

1. A strategic approach
Barilla Wasa defined a CRM program before commencing
implementation. The program goal was to support controlling,
marketing, and sales processes with SAP software across coordinated projects and to realize sustained value potential in the
short- to midterm.
2. A process-oriented procedure
Because of the close relevance to the point of sale, the first
process step involved equipping the mobile sales force with SAP
Mobile Sales. The second step will enable SAP-supported sales
and demand planning. Complete integration of mobile sales
and sales and demand planning will be realized by mapping
tactical campaign management processes.
3. Sequentially run projects
To avoid overstraining departments at Barilla Wasa Germany,
and minimize both the risks and the costs involved in
implementing new software, Barilla Wasa opted to avoid
running parallel projects at the same time.
4. Medium-term realization of potential benefits
To realize the full value in tactical campaign management, the
company considers the combination of an efficient mobile sales
force and strategic sales planning to be a basic requirement.

SAP VALUE ASSESSMENT: THE SAP CONSULTING

APPROACH

SAP Value Assessment is a method developed by SAP management consultants to calculate ROI. The method is based on the
classic investment calculation (calculation of net present value)
with the internal rate of return. Based on this calculation, the
total cost and the total potential benefit of the solution considered is identified, examined, and discounted in a time series.
In the IT field, investments and product life cycles are usually
set at around six years. In Barilla Wasas case, the step-by-step
implementation was considered a special circumstance (first
mobile sales, then campaign management, with the evaluation
based on both). This resulted in a useful life made up of two
consecutive analysis periods of four years each.
The determination of improvement potential is based on interviews with the process owners. Results in terms of quality,
integration, availability, transparency, speed, and other factors
are also underlain with specific data on quantities, costs, and
performance. Based on these results, the SAP consultants develop theories as to possible value levers and narrow down potential value from there. They compare the current situation with
the planned modifications, in terms of process adjustments
and organization forms, and depict the improvement potential
using key figures. Detailed analysis also provides information on
the relevance of the identified value lever and helps focus the
estimated effects.

www.sap.com /contactsap

The costs associated with realizing the potential value identified

are determined by the necessary investment in IT systems, hardware, implementation, maintenance, and user training.
The SAP Consulting methodology then calculates the ROI
(internal rate of return), the static payback period, and the net
present value, which makes clear the fundamental costeffectiveness of the project. The results aid decision making on
alternative investments before they are made, and help measure
the profitability of the investment afterwards. The results are
also used to help focus IT projects on improving processes to
leverage as much value as possible.

mySAP CRM at BARILLA WASA

Barilla Wasas spectrum of applications
Route planning
Visit management
Order entry and modification
Collections
Listing and promotion management
Sales call evaluation
Analysis, reporting, and planning functions
Real-time communication
Scenarios also analyzed
Campaign management
Sales planning and demand planning

50 072 888 (05/02)

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CONCLUSION

Barilla Wasa enjoys an enviable position as a well-known brand

with a leadership position in the German market for pasta,
sauces, and baked goods and besides the quality of its
products, customer service plays a key role. Fully appreciating
that excellent customer service relies on information availability,
Barilla Wasa undertook a strategic implementation of mySAP
CRM to centralize information management and distribution.
As a result, its external sales force is well equipped to provide
individualized customer service, to execute centrally planned
promotions at the point of sale, and report real-time market
data to headquarters. And, by engaging SAP Consulting to analyze the effectiveness of the solution, Barilla Wasa now has a
tested recipe for future enhancements.