Business management with SAP Analytics Cloud

DMK Deutsches Milchkontor is a consumer goods company based in Zeven, Germany. The company specializes in the production of high-quality milk and dairy products. With approximately 6,800 employees, DMK combines industry expertise with a strong commitment to quality and innovation in the dairy sector. In 2023, the company achieved sales of 1.77 billion euros.

DMK Deutsches Milchkontor expresses need for a future-oriented analytics architecture

The DMK Group is Germany’s biggest dairy cooperative, producing around 6.5 billion kilograms of processed milk each year which is then transformed into a wide range of milk and dairy products. With a clear vision and a guiding principle of sustainability, over 6,800 employees on 20 sites around the world work according to the highest standards of quality, customer satisfaction and innovation to produce high-quality products. The optimisation of the reporting system was a logical and target-oriented step towards meeting the high quality requirements and ensuring the digitalisation and innovation of the entire value chain.

New start with the Greenfield approach for SAP BW/4HANA as well as SAP Analytics Cloud reporting and planning

The DMK Group chose to optimise their reporting. Things like exploitation invoicing, price controlling, market analyses and functional cost transparency all need to be included in a modern analysis architecture, as does the precise handling of KPIs without having to switch between different media and technologies. After a series of intensive evaluations, it became clear that: The new management model needed to be mainly business-oriented in order to ensure the company’s strategy, value-creating processes and measurability. DMK launched an almost one-year business management project. The design and architecture of the analytics landscape was created as a hybrid, integrated approach with SAP BW/4HANA and SAP Analytics Cloud reporting. A database with a single-point-of-truth was created in the target architecture to enable a uniform view of the KPIs, from purchasing to sales.

Ready for the “next level” of reporting and planning with the established architecture

Thanks to the common technological platform, the following is now possible: While the data warehouse is set up on-premise, the SAP Analytics Cloud follows DMK’s cloud strategy. Alongside the “Next Level Reporting”, the next milestone is “Next Level Planning” which includes a strategic, a medium-term and annual planning. The profit centre invoicing, the integration of the dairy module in the reporting, as well as sales, pricing and market data will also be included. The inclusion of the forecast planning is still also pending. “All of this will result in a comprehensive information system for DMK,” sums up experienced BW expert Christian Steiner (NTT DATA Business Solutions). According to Steiner, their aim was to develop the data visualisation and retrieval in a process-oriented way in order to provide the experts at DMK with an efficient and forward-looking way to control their business processes.