Colgate-Palmolive selects SAP HANA
to improve the speed of business
analytics with IBM and SAP
Overview
Challenge
Colgate-Palmolive wanted to
Founded in 1806, Colgate-Palmolive is
ROI analysis. However, we wanted
increase the speed of data
a global consumer products company
to improve the performance of the
analysis in order to gain business
which sells nearly $17 billion annually in
solution, and we saw that the new SAP
insight faster. The aims were to
personal care, home care, oral care and
Accelerated Trade Promotion Planning
improve profitability analysis and
pet nutrition products in 200 countries.
application powered by the SAP
to enable a new trade promotions
HANA platform might be the best
management capability.
Business analytics is critically important
approach.
to Colgate as it strives to achieve a
Solution
win/win balance with its customers
Hundreds of times faster
Working as a team with SAP,
of the highest possible sales with the
With IBM and SAP as its strategic
IBM Business Partner Micro
lowest possible cost across its vast
technology partners, Colgate
Strategies and IBM, Colgate
array of global brands. With enormous
decided to deploy the IBM Systems
is building a solution based
volumes of data to crunch within limited
solution for SAP HANA, based on
on the SAP Accelerated Trade
time frames, the company is always
IBM System x servers. The SAP
Promotion Planning application
looking to increase the amount of
HANA platform provides in-memory
and SAP HANA.
processing it can complete within the
analytics capabilities that can deliver
time available for decision-making.
results hundreds of times faster than
Key benefits
conventional environments. Initially,
Rapid, non-disruptive
Tom Greene, CIO of Colgate-Palmolive,
Colgate decided to run a test project
implementation took just eight
comments, Working as a team with
to confirm the capabilities of the
weeks. Results were highly
SAP, we had deployed trade promotion
technology and assess its suitability for
impressive: some processes
management functionality within our
use on larger, more strategic projects.
that took 77 minutes before now
take 13 seconds; Colgate will be
SAP environment. The solution allowed
us to do top-down target planning
This initial project, which is already in
deploying a solution for trade
all the way down to the SKU [stock-
production for the Hills Pet Nutrition
promotion management based on
keeping unit] level, and bottom-up
division of Colgate, is a profitability
SAP HANA.
Case study
analysis solution based on the SAP
CO-PA Accelerator software. Powered
by SAP HANA, SAP CO-PA enables
real-time profitability reporting on large
data volumes, with on-the-fly analysis
of profitability data at any level of
Business Challenge
granularity, aggregation, and dimension.
Colgate wanted the ability to model
Colgate selected the IBM System
profitability and trade promotions
x3950 X5 Workload Optimized Solution
across large sets of customers and
for SAP HANA. This appliance features
products, in enormous detail, and as
the advanced SAP HANA in-memory
near as possible in real time.
platform running on SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server with IBM General
Based on our positive
experience with the
test project, we are
confident that the
technological edge
provided by the IBM
and SAP solution will
produce significant
benefits once our
business users have
access to the new
insight.
Its highly integrated sales planning
Parallel File System (GPFS), all
process already supported both
pre-integrated on the powerful, scalable
Tom Greene
top-down and bottom-up analysis of
and compact IBM System x3950 X5.
CIO
SAP data in a large central database.
Colgate-Palmolive
However, the sheer volume of data
Running customer and brand
made it difficult to run key analyses
profitability analysis on the SAP HANA
as fast as the business wanted.
appliance from IBM is significantly faster
than before, as Tom Greene explains:
It is less about speed of access to
Some things that took 500 minutes
information and more about having the
to run are down to 25 minutes, so the
time to actually do the analysis, says
team at Hills get results 20 times faster.
Tom Greene. We had all the data in the
In another example, we had some
past, but it was difficult to analyze it in
processes that took 77 minutes and
the time available. The CO-PA solution
are now down to 13 seconds, which is
takes into account a huge number of
355 times faster. Everywhere we look,
different factors across massive sets
it is hours to minutes and minutes to
of brands and customers to quickly
seconds: a huge improvement.
answer questions such as, Are we
profitable with this customer today?
The business users at Hills are now
able to run reports more than 300
Using the IBM Systems solution for SAP
times faster than before, and on much
HANA and SAP CO-PA Accelerator,
more comprehensive sets of data.
analysts at Hills can, for example,
2
Tom Greene adds, We received a lot
of positive feedback on the CO-PA
When we introduce
our TPM solution
based on SAP HANA,
we expect that
thousands of users
around the world
will be able to do
much better analysis,
which will feed into
improved quality
of promotions and
better conversations
with customers.
Tom Greene
CIO
Colgate-Palmolive
solution. The initial response was
usually along the lines of, Is this really
doing what it was doing before?,
because people could not quite believe
how fast it is now!
Solution
Trade promotions
Working in a team with IBM and
Based on the impressive results
SAP as its strategic technology
achieved with this initial project based
partners, and with IBM Business
on SAP HANA, Colgate took the
Partner Micro Strategies, Colgate
strategic decision to develop its new
ran a test project to investigate the
trade promotions management (TPM)
potential of using the SAP HANA
solution on the same platform. The
platform for in-memory analytics.
user-base for the TPM solution in the
This initial project used the SAP
global customer development teams
CO-PA Accelerator software to
across the whole Colgate business will
deliver detailed customer and brand
number in the thousands.
profitability analyses from large data
sets at extremely high speed.
Says Tom Greene, Promotion planning
is a key part of how our industry is
Based on the success of the project,
check the return on investment in any
managed. With our existing systems
Colgate is now building a second and
given brand, and adjust promotional
we can do ROI analysis on promotions,
much larger solution based on the
expenditure accordingly. This might
but only at a high level within the
SAP Accelerated Trade Promotion
mean redistributing funding from a
available time. When we introduce our
Planning application powered by
brand that is already highly profitable
TPM solution based on SAP HANA, we
SAP HANA. This is a new trade
for use in promoting a less profitable
expect that thousands of users around
promotions management tool that
brand. In this way, the solution can
the world will be able to do much better
is expected to revolutionize the
provide highly effective support for
analysis, which will feed into improved
companys understanding of vital
brand portfolio decisions, backing them
quality of promotions and better
KPIs around brand, customer and
with solid and reliable analysis. The high
conversations with customers.
trade performance.
speed of analysis also means that the
brand teams can re-run the analysis
Analyzing the performance of
frequently and see the effects their
promotions requires huge volumes
adjustments are having.
of data across diverse subject areas,
3
including pricing, raw material cost,
volume discounts and more; numerous
different variables can impact on the
profitability of each campaign. Colgate
needs to be able to tweak each of
these variables to understand how to
Key Solution Components
provide the most business value to its
customers while also maintaining its
Industry
own profitability.
Consumer Products
Our highly virtualized
global data center
is practically
100 percent IBM,
and our business
software landscape
is similarly dominated
by SAP.
Trade promotions management is all
Applications
about creating a win-win situation for
SAP HANA, SAP CO-PA Accelerator,
us and for our customers, says Tom
SAP Accelerated Trade Promotion
Greene. The complexity and volume
Planning
of data involved in each promotion
can be enormous, and it was difficult
Hardware
to analyze it in the way we wanted to
IBM Systems solution for SAP HANA,
before. As the project develops, we
based on an IBM System x3950 X5
are hopeful that the SAP Accelerated
server with four 10-core Intel Xeon
Trade Promotion Planning application
E7-8870 processors running at 2.4
powered by SAP HANA is going to give
GHz and 1 TB RAM
us a clear competitive advantage. In the
testing environment, we are seeing that
Software
the scalability is huge. You can throw
IBM General Parallel File System
several factors more data at it and the
(GPFS), SUSE Linux Enterprise
response times stay the same. When
Server
you are doing big, complex promotions
Both companies
offer tremendous
price-performance,
and the benefits
we get from our
investments mean
that our relationship
with both companies
is very tight, and we
do not waste a lot
of time looking at
alternatives.
performance is really impressive.
IBM, SAP and
Colgate are really a
close-knit team that
is our preferred way
of working.
Micro Strategies, IBM Lab Services,
Based on our positive experience with
Tom Greene
SAP Consulting
the test project, we are confident that
CIO
the technological edge provided by
Colgate-Palmolive
with multiple KPIs, that is when the
Services
IBM Business Partner
the IBM and SAP solution will produce
significant benefits once our business
users have access to the new insight.
4
quality of relationships we can build
with our customers. The company that
Our relationship with
IBM is very important.
We feel that we get
access to the best
and the brightest
people.
is able to respond the quickest and is
able to add value is the company that
will win.
Pre-integrated solution
Business Benefits
The IBM Workload Optimized Solutions
for SAP HANA are available in various
Following the rapid, non-disruptive
Tom Greene
configurations corresponding to
deployment of the SAP CO-PA
CIO
different levels of capacity and
Accelerator software within the
Colgate-Palmolive
performance. Colgate has one 1 TB
Hills Pet Nutrition division, users
appliance for the production SAP
saw an enormous increase in the
CO-PA environment, and one 256 GB
speed of profitability analysis.
appliance for its test environment.
The time taken to run analyses
Colgate is designing the TPM solution
with the goal of having SAP HANA
The production environment features
dropped by orders of magnitude
enable real-time analysis of trade
an x3950 X5 with four 10-core Intel
in many cases from hours to
promotions while they are running,
Xeon E7-8870 processors running at
minutes, and from minutes to
enabling the company to make
2.4 GHz, with 1 TB of memory, while the
seconds.
adjustments and improve performance
System x3690 in the test environment
in-flight.
has 512 GB memory but with two
8-core Intel Xeon X7560 processors.
One set of processes that
previously took 77 minutes now
takes just 13 seconds to complete.
Tom Greene says, We hope to be able
to get much more detailed information
The Intel Xeon processors deliver
much faster, enabling people to make
performance designed to handle
With faster access to critical
better decisions as a result. We want
data-demanding workloads with
data on profitability across a
to improve our share of each category
improved scalability and increased
much larger set of customers and
in our customers stores, and we
memory and I/O capacity. They
brands, the customer development
want to support them in growing their
deliver performance that is ideal
teams within the Hills business
categories also.
for the most demanding workloads
have better insight into customer
and offer high scalability along with
behavior.
They want more information all the
increased memory and I/O capacity,
time; getting that information quickly
which is critical for SAP HANA.
from SAP HANA will certainly be a
Advanced reliability and security
competitive advantage in terms of the
features work to maintain data integrity,
5
accelerate encrypted transactions and
maximize the availability of SAP HANA
applications.
Colgate achieved a four-to-one
compression ratio for its data in
SAP HANA, which will translate into
long-term cost savings in hardware and
energy by reducing the total capacity
requirements.
The IBM System x3950 and x3690
servers can include IBM eXFlash units,
each of which contains up to eight
1.8-inch hot-swap front-accessible
solid state drives (SSDs), offering up to
The input from Micro
Strategies was also
an important factor.
As early adopters
of the SAP HANA
technologies, we
naturally faced some
challenges, but the
combined team of
SAP, IBM and Micro
Strategies pulled
together and resolved
all issues very
quickly.
240,000 random read IOPS and up to 2
GBps sustained read throughput.
Tom Greene
CIO
SAP and Intel worked closely together
Colgate-Palmolive
on the optimization of the SAP HANA
technology, ensuring that it uses the full
features of the Intel Xeon E7 processor
product family to the maximum.
In particular, the technology takes
advantage of the extremely large,
high-speed caches on the Xeon E7
processors to keep data as close as
possible to the cores, minimizing the
time spent waiting for data.
Colgate will soon deploy several
more IBM SAP HANA appliances
as it continues to develop the trade
promotions management solution.
6
performance SSD and disk access
and the capability to implement high
At the moment, I am
not sure what we
would not want to
bring into SAP HANA
anywhere you have
a data bottleneck is
an opportunity!
availability solutions using GPFS
replication and seamless cluster
extension.
No storage area network (SAN) is
required, and the database capacity
can be expanded by adding nodes.
SAP has validated the IBM Systems
We anticipate that the
SAP HANA solution
from SAP and IBM
will give us better
tools and information
that can help our
people make better
decisions.
solution for SAP HANA up to 16
IBM System x3950 X5 1 TB nodes,
delivering a total of 16 TB of capacity,
and larger clusters can be validated on
request.
IBM Business Partner Micro Strategies
provided implementation services,
working closely with both IBM Lab
Tom Greene
Services and SAP Consulting.
CIO
Together, the partners successfully
Colgate-Palmolive
achieved full deployment within just
eight weeks, with zero disruption to
business users.
The appliances are being deployed
Our highly virtualized global data
at Colgate in a multi-node, scale-out
center is practically 100 percent IBM,
configuration that offers high availability
and our business software landscape is
with the ability to accommodate
similarly dominated by SAP, says Tom
considerable growth in data volume
Greene.
and demand.
Both companies offer tremendous
IBM General Parallel File System
price-performance, and the benefits
(GPFS) is deployed on all
we get from our investments mean that
IBM System x workload optimized
our relationship with both companies is
solutions for SAP HANA, enabling high
very tight, and we do not waste a lot of
7
IBM Deutschland GmbH
D-71137 Ehningen
ibm.com/solutions/sap
time looking at alternatives. IBM, SAP
Global benefits
and Colgate are really a close-knit team
With Colgates global business
that is our preferred way of working.
standardized on the SAP ERP
application, the company has the
Our relationship with IBM is very
advantage of a single, consistent source
important. We feel that we get access
of enterprise data. The expectation is
to the best and the brightest people,
that the SAP HANA appliance from
and it is all hands on deck when there
IBM will make it feasible to analyze
is a problem. Innovation is also an
this vast store of information within
important factor: we are bringing in
reasonable time limits, to generate
the latest IBM hardware on almost a
better understanding of business
quarterly basis, and we work closely
performance across brands, customers
with IBM to understand the product
and trade promotions.
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roadmaps and how we can take
advantage of new features.
Tom Greene concludes, At the
moment, I am not sure what we would
The input from Micro Strategies
not want to bring into SAP HANA
was also an important factor. As
anywhere you have a data bottleneck is
early adopters of the SAP HANA
an opportunity! We anticipate that the
technologies, we naturally faced some
SAP HANA solution from SAP and IBM
challenges, but the combined team
will give us better tools and information
of SAP, IBM and Micro Strategies
that can help our people make better
pulled together and resolved all issues
decisions it is clearly an important
very quickly. We have had no hiccups
benefit in improving our understanding
whatsoever since going into production
of the global Colgate business.
on the CO-PA solution. That was a
really major success factor for us: all
that the users noticed was a major
increase in the speed of analytics!
2012 SAP AG. All rights reserved.
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SPC03419-WWEN-00 (November 2012)
