Krüll Group

Controlling Software at the Krüll Group - An airbag for car dealers

At a car dealership with a number of decentralised sites, controlling is faced with particular challenges. The relevant figures are stored in many databases and are not all of the same quality, and some weeks may go by before the numbers are consolidated. Help is at hand in the form of professional controlling programs by means of which the information from the branches is automatically recorded without delay and presented clearly.

The Krüll Motor Company has been using the CORPORATE PLANNER program since 2004. For the family business, a specialised distributor of Ford, Opel, Volvo, Jaguar, Landrover and Honda, the program functions primarily as a planning and analysis tool. CORPORATE PLANNER is used for displaying the financial results of the group, keeping track of the order trend and monitoring stock levels. The financial accounting pre-system at Krüll is Dracar+ by ADP, though it is also possible to transfer figures to CORPORATE PLANNER from all the other major database systems such as Oracle, SQL Server and DB2. At Krüll, the software is accessed by the branch and sales managers based all over Germany as well as by the management and controlling staff.

Time is money

The reason for introducing CORPORATE PLANNER was the fact that the business figures were never ready on time. Since the return on sales in the car trade is traditionally low with high stock levels being maintained at the same time, it is essential that counteractive measures are taken as soon as any negative trends emerge. Therefore, Krüll was looking for a user-friendly tool for recording and managing all of the branches and their departments without the delay. "Our problem was that, until the figures for all eleven branches were in, we were only able to make inaccurate forecasts", explains Frank Niemann, Controller at Krüll Motor Company GmbH & Co KG. "With profit margins of around one percent, this constitutes a great risk for a car dealer." So the company surveyed the market for suitable software applications. After a selection process, it was quickly established that only CORPORATE PLANNER was able to meet the specifications of the car dealership. The main selection criteria were compatibility with a variety of pre-systems, consolidation and analysis of branch data in one application and flexible ready-made standard models which can be customised as necessary.

Consultancy included

The Krüll group started with five program licences. Corporate Planning supervised the implementation of the system and supported the car sales group as the first structures were built. The staff were quickly able to obtain an overall view of interrelationships and results. With the different data streams, budget/actual comparisons and variances were shown instantly. The results for any time span could be viewed by simply adjusting the flexible time-line setting.

Corporate Planning were also on hand to provide assistance when the first data import was carried out and the various report templates created. The program allowed individual analyses such as balance sheets, liquidity plans, P&L statements and all sorts of ad hoc reports to be generated, so the necessary action to be taken became clear straight away.

Despite the complexity of CORPORATE PLANNER, just three days of training were sufficient for introductory purposes, and the newly acquired knowledge was then passed on internally to the other members of staff with access to the program.

Increased transparency

"The expected improvements in our company controlling could be seen as soon as the product was implemented. Our branch reporting system is going to be improved even further," the satisfied Head of Controlling at Krüll Group, Frank Niemann, tells us. "We also use CORPORATE PLANNER for our budget/actual variance analyses. The results are displayed in the various reports." In 2006, the complete budgeting process of the Krüll Group is to be conducted using the controlling tool. As for further plans, Niemann reveals: "When our licences have been increased from five to ten, we will be turning our attention to integrated financial planning and the web-based Management Information System, and implementation will be considered." The MIS module is a web-based reporting and planning system which makes reports available to the user via the internet or intranet architecture. It combines data consistency and sophisticated authorisation concepts with the easily navigable interface of a web browser. "Our intention is to use them to make our business processes even more transparent, strengthening individual responsibility," concludes Niemann.