Dirk Pattyn, Director of Operations, IT, and Planning at Orfit Belgium, explains: “Our organization generates a lot of data, and not everyone interpreted it the same way. We couldn’t see the forest for the trees.”
Dirk Pattyn saw that Orfit needed to make changes in the area of data and knowledge sharing. “We used to work with Excel spreadsheets linked to Dynamics 365, but the downside is that you have to do that on a regular basis refresh. Over time, there were more than 100 Excel files that needed to be updated. It was a terrible chore, and after just a few hours, your spreadsheet was already out of date! A second problem was that only one person—myself—was responsible for all those reports. So it wouldn’t be easy if someone else had to take over my job.”
The situation was no longer sustainable, so a solution had to be found. “The main danger lay in the fact that everyone interpreted the data differently. That’s why I realized that Power BI ”Our saving grace: everyone is looking at the same data, which is also recent and up to date."
”We've implemented Power BI across all departments at Orfit so that everyone looks at the numbers the same way."
Dirk Pattyn – Director of Operations, IT, and Planning at Orfit
Step by step
When Orfit decided to implement Power BI within the organization, they deliberately took a very systematic approach.
Financial
As a starting point, the following was examined: financial reports. “It started with the classic P&L, but was quickly expanded into a sort of ‘one-pager’ where, after posting all invoices in Dynamics, we can see our EBIDA and EBITDA. The great thing is that everyone is always looking at the latest version of those figures, since all the tables are refreshed eight times a day.”
Orfit further expanded its financial reporting by connecting Power BI to its cost-of-sales systems on one end and to its Dynamics systems on the other. This allows them to see exactly when, what, and how much they sell. In addition, the financial reporting was expanded to include other countries, such as the U.S. and Hong Kong, in order to generate consolidated reports.
Sales & Returns
After the financial section, Power BI was used for the ‘’Sales and Returns". Pattyn explains: “This is where most of the tables were used, so we started analyzing them. We noticed that the existing tables were often modified by sales and marketing, which meant the figures weren’t always accurate. But when you want to track progress, you want everyone to view the figures the same way. That’s why we decided to standardize reports ”With Power BI, we were able to easily visualize data in charts and statistics. Now everyone approaches the numbers the same way, whether you're talking to salesperson A or B, and whether it's about the United States, Belgium, or France. Everyone has to look at customers, numbers, margins, and profitability the same way."
Orfit, in turn, feeds the information from these reports back into the financial system. What are they selling, what does it cost to produce it, and what is the margin? They also use their system to determine the costs of marketing a product: what are the costs of the salespeople, their operating expenses, and what are the operational costs? This gives them insight into their margins and where they’re turning a profit.
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Sales Budgets & Targeting
For Orfit, the third step was to analyze data related to Sales Budgets and Targeting. Here, they establish the connection between what has been sold, their goals, and profitability. “There’s a specific target for every sale, and in Power BI, you can filter by this very easily. That way, each salesperson sees only their own numbers and their share of the group’s total. They see this through the CRM and in their email inbox.”
Production
Orfit further translates the data from the target module into production. This gives them insight into production operations, allows them to capture data, and—thanks to a planning tool—enables them to see what they need to plan for and what they’ve produced at what cost. ”Our production is very broad in scope, since we have many different departments and machine processes. But if you can link all production data back to your sales data and financial data, you gain a very clear overall view of your system—accurate and clear at all times.”
“We use Power BI’s predictive capabilities to take proactive action”
Materials Management and Materials Resources
“If you can map out customers” ordering patterns, you can prevent disruptions to materials and resources planning. So we use Power BI’s predictive capabilities, which allow us to take proactive action.”
The initial drawback, however, was that they could only take into account orders that had already been recorded in the Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP System, so the next step was to connect to their CRM system. There, Pattyn can see which quotes have been prepared and how likely they are to be closed. Based on that, Orfit can plan for the necessary materials and production capacity in the future. “If you were to extract all this information manually from your CRM, you’d need two to three people spending the whole day creating spreadsheets. And by the time that spreadsheet is finished, it’s already out of date!” Dirk emphasizes, explaining his decision.
Customer Satisfaction
Orfit’s latest Power BI module focuses on customer satisfaction. These reports show satisfaction levels and complaints. “Here, for example, you can see our delivery performance. When we agree on a delivery date with customers, we have to meet it. If we can’t, we need to figure out why. You can quickly visualize issues like that with Power BI.”
In the future, Pattyn would like to bring things full circle and start using Power BI as a tool for HR as well, for example, for performance reviews and evaluation meetings. “We can also visualize the overall scores given during those meetings, in combination with, for example, Power Apps and PIN codes to ensure privacy.”
100% linked
Bringing Power BI to every department—that's Dirk's ultimate dream, and Orfit . “I think we’re currently at 90%. We’ve even started displaying Power BI data on large screens in the factory. I think it’s a fantastic tool! No matter where someone is, they have access to our data, and it’s always up to date. In terms of security, it’s very easy to grant or revoke access rights for specific people. I’m also much more at ease knowing that all the knowledge isn’t concentrated in just one person anymore. Thanks to Power BI, we’ve ensured that follow-up is easy.”
