Firmenich and SAS - sasCommunity.org

From a powerful statistical software to a
business intelligence solution
Yann Le Gauffey
Wednesday 17 May 2006
SAS® Forum International
Firmenich and SAS
1.
2.
3.
Firmenich overlook
MR in the perfumery division
The first steps with SAS
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4.
Difficulties encountered
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5.
« Global solution » implementation
Standardization and data architecture
User/system Interface
SAS as the optimal solution?
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6.
Former experience with the software
Decision to go for a company solution
Internal resource vs. outsourcing
Maintenance and evolution
From data analysis to business intelligence
Our Purpose is “to Create Unique Sensorial
Our
Mission
Experiences
in Fragrances and Flavors, inspiring
Emotions and fulfilling Desires”
“We foster an environment that fuels the passion
and creativity of our people, engaging their talents
to Inspire our Clients and Consumers worldwide”
Our Activities
Research - Development - Production of aromachemicals for the perfume, cosmetics,
household, food & drinks industries by
chemical synthesis & biological methods. The
high quality of the raw materials and chemical
intermediates is the backbone of our success!
Creation of Perfumes & Flavors for brands
marketed by our clients
Design of new concepts and trends
111 years of organic growth: key facts
• Turnover: over € 1.3 billion; 12-years continuous growth
• N.1 in Perfumery & Ingredients
• Strong corporate identity: the Firmenich family & brand
• Innovation: 10% of sales devoted to R&D; 800 active patents
• Sales effectiveness and in-depth consumer understanding
• International outreach: present in 56 countries; 4500 employees
The Family: 5 successful generations
1895: Foundation of Chuit & Naef in Geneva.
1910: Chuit sells his share to Fred Firmenich, the
company is renamed Naef & Cie.
1931-33: Philippe Chuit & Martin Naef retire.
André & Roger Firmenich join the Company.
1934: Firmenich & Cie.
1972: Firmenich S.A.
CEOs successive generations:
1965 : Fred-Henri Firmenich
1989 : Pierre-Yves Firmenich
2002 : Patrick Firmenich
Sales split by Segment
Ingredients
Perfumery
16%
51%
33%
Flavors
17 %
Perfumery Business Categories
Fine Fragrance
Homecare
(air care, laundry care,
surface care)
Bodycare
(deodorants, hair care,
skin care, soaps, body
wash)
A few Perfumery Successes
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Fine fragrances such as :
Vetiver-Carven-1957
Ô de Lancôme-Lancôme-1969
Anaïs Anaïs-Cacharel-1978
Moschino- Moschino-1987
L’Eau d’Issey-I. Miyake-1992
XS-Paco Rabanne-1993
Jean-Paul Gaultier-1993
XS pour Elle-Paco Rabanne-1994
cK One-Calvin Klein-1994
Poême-Lancôme-1996
Polo sport-R.Lauren-1996
•Dune pour Homme-Dior-1997
•Lanvin l’Homme-Lanvin-1997
•Black-Bulgari-1998
•Lolita Lempicka-1997
•Cologne-Thierry Mugler-2001
•Blu-Bulgari-2002
•Chic-Carolina Herrera-2002
•Sensi-Giorgio Armani-2003
•Style in Play-Lacoste-2004
•Cinema-Yves Saint Laurent-2004
•Black XS-Paco Rabanne-2005
•Hypnôse-Lancôme-2005
NB: Firmenich
Firmenich only
only divulge
divulges
names of
of its
itsperfume
perfume
NB:
s names
creations ifif this
this information
information was
was published
published in
in the
the press.
press.
creations
A Global
Global Player
Player
A
GB
RUSSIA
GERMANY
BELGIUM POLAND
FRANCE AUSTRIA Pakistan
South Korea
SPAIN ITALY
TURKEY
CHINA
JAPAN
Israel
INDIA Bangladesh
THAILAND
SRI LANKAHONG KONG
SINGAPORE PHILIPPINES
Taiwan
Presence in
in 56
56 countries
countries ...
...
Presence
SOUTH AFRICA
AUSTRALIA
- AFFILIATED COMPANIES
and Rep. offices
- Agencies
CANADA
Guatemala VENEZUELA
COLOMBIA
Ecuador
Paraguay
ARGENTINA Uruguay
People diversity:
… our differentiating asset, your partners!
Pacific
Geneva
794
1470
Latin America
471
1179
North America
637
Europe
World total : 4’500
In a largely number driven industry, namely the
perfumery, the need for a powerful statistical software
constitutes a primary objective.
CONSUMER
HABIT
MOTIVATION
MARKET
CONCEPT
FRAGRANCE
CREATION
AND
TESTING
ATTITUDE
CLAIM
USAGE
Key issues
PRODUCT
Road Map of Market Research
abc
Client
Who is the
consumer ?
How does
he use the
product ?
To reinforce the
knowledge of the
consumer and
brands
How does he talk
about fragrances
?
To identify and optimise new
themes with winning potential.
………... ?
Consumer
insight
What themes
have good
potential ?
How can we
improve them ?
What is the best
candidate for this
brief ?
To select the winner to submit
between different options.
The one preferred by
consumers, that conveys the
most pleasure, that supports
the best the concept and the
brand values….
Product testing
What is the
best candidate
for my
brand/concept
?
Why SAS
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Inheritage
The Rolls Royce of Statistics
Stand-Alone vs Global
Complexity
Ressources
Business intelligence issue
Appriopriate SAS solution
I am a Dinosaur
• The binding with SAS gets back to my student time,
when I discover the bloody world of statistics
• In all major companies I worked for, SAS was my
companion.
• SAS has evidently evolved , when I did not, and
has expanded its territory.
• Consequently, to properly leverage SAS, I had to
have an higher, more global perspective
• Help from someone of the Y Generation!
The Rolls Royce of Statistics
Any scientist should always master how his/her
data are manipulated, transformed,
compressed… crunched
• Statistics represent the original foundation of the
software
• Very large spectrum of robust techniques and methods
• Up to date algorithms (any innovative method is rapidly
implemented)
• Very accurate and accessible set of options (methods,
tests, distances)-> easy to fine tune to fit needs
• Relatively explicit cause explanation for errors
• Availabilities of “SASmen” throughout the world
(stats+dvpers)
• Useful but too rare guiding books
Stand-alone or global solution
• In between stand-alone tools and global framework, the latter
was the preferred option for the 2 following reasons:
• Data regrouping and sedimentation in a unique place
• Raw data, research designs, research results, conclusions and reference
codes to other tools
• Sedimentation allows for revisiting any piece of company data for a very
different purpose
• Better tracking of « on-going » workload.
• Data management and treatment over one single platform
• Avoidance of local « cooking » algorithms
• Ensure any statistic novelty is rapidly available
• Easiness for IS/IT people to administrate / maintain Market Research and
Sensory platforms
Complexity
• Yet, implementing a global solution implies additional
levels of complexity, specifically in setting up
• the appropriate degree of standardization
• For instance, recoding items with the EAN code turned out to be a
mistake
• « The best is the ennemy of the good »
- Spontaneous tendency to depart from original purpose
- Spontaneous addition of extra information
- Utilization of metadata, to avoid loading up trash, was ultimately
abandonned
- Beyond the data, the architecture of the data rapidly forces to
revisit the foundations assumptions (what do we call a project, a
brief etc…)
Competing with habits
• a decent userfriendly interface
• Pre-existing habits are the main obstacle to any
new interfaces
• A tool in its final form is extremely hard to
formalize… it never ends
• Even with the ultimate form of the tool, one can easily
admit it was not easy to foresee
• The Global interface must be acceptable compared
to any local stand alone software, usually easily
customizable EX: Graph SAS vs XLS
Resources
• To make it happen, an internal business resource with high
expertise in SAS is a key success factor, because of
• The pace of technological innovations in computers, computer
sciences and software
• Our Market Research Department being very exposed to the external
world (agencies, clients…) and its changes
• The focus of IS/IT resources and talents on other top priority projects
(SAP)
I decided to hire an “Homo Erectus” to provide us with guidance
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Mathematics+Stats background
General knowledge in computer sciences & main technologies
Specialization in software development
And young!
Business intelligence issue
• Recently, SAS offered a solution to solve many of
the above problems, thanks to the SAS BI
solution
What is SAS BI made of?
• SAS add-in for MS Office: the most
common way to run SAS tasks from a
familiar environment (Excel)
• A Web Portal, the SAS Delivery
Information Portal, gathering all data and
results
• Web Report Studio enabling standardized
reports through Web interface, not used
for the time being
SAS Add-in for MS Office (AMO)
• Researchers can
• retrieve their data no matter where they are (local vs
server)
• access SAS analysis capabilities
• With custom tasks we have added “home made” statistical methods
• And finally create reports directly from and onto Excel, Word,
PowerPoint the way we need them (incl. Graphs)
• via integrated and familiar menus and toolbars
• In short, the AMO is the easiest way to use SAS
when you don’t know SAS.
Web Portal: SAS Information Delivery Portal
The Web Portal provides to the community of researchers a
single access point for aggregated information via an easyto-use Web-based interface.
• For them , it was the easiest and fastest way to share and
find data and information
• Researchers started to talk from the same documents and
navigate within the same architecture
From this point on, they spontaneously understood the benefit
of standardizing their way of presenting information
In other words, this was the beginning of Knowledge
Management.
Knowledge management and
business intelligence challenges
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We have improved our decision process as
• We enlarged the range of sources of information (Fragrance tests, U&A,
external entities…)
• We extract the essence of information thanks to the stats power (home made
recipes)
• We compiled the information under a limited number of formats
• We have saved hours of graphical reworks by delivering customized reports
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We are working on
• Transforming/shaping this core information into knowledge (confidential)
• Disseminating part of this knowledge on a broader scope (R&D, Labs,
Clients, Finances…)
• Reporting to management, cost, duration, workload, efficiency of activities
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We will have to get ready for some more changes
• It will impact the way we work and get organized
Demo
• SAS Add-in for MS Office & custom
tasks
Run
Business intelligence issue
• As we moved on, the problem shifted from data
analysis to Knowledge Management.
• The seed for change probably started in my
department but it actually really is a Company issue:
Knowledge management
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What information is needed,
Whom to
In what format
At what frequency….
• How to link these Market Research and Marketing data
to the other information systems
• And above all, how to transform it into
knowledge…
Thank you for your attention