Agio Cigars Gets to Know the Business Better with Analytics

Royal Agio Cigars (www.agiocigars.com) is a stable and healthy company. Yet, sales in its main markets are threatened by strict legislation. The company is prohibited from promoting products to consumers, while contending with competition for retail shelf space. In effect, Agio focused on improving customer relationship management (CRM) and loyalty programs to strengthen its relationships with retailers. Agio needed to unlock the benefits of its information and combine it with data from market research agencies and distributors to target marketing more accurately. To do this, Agio implemented IBM Cognos software (www.ibm.com). First, it built a data warehouse filled with internal CRM data. It then developed basic sales and marketing reports using IBM Cognos 8 BI. Next, it supplemented the data warehouse with external data. Finally, budgeting processes were upgraded with IBM Cognos 8 Planning. 

"The implementation of a business analytics solution has had a big impact across all sales and production functions within the organization," says Ton Mens, controller at Royal Agio Cigars. "Everybody is benefiting from immediate and accurate information insights into their lines of business."

For example, budget managers now have more control over their own data. "They can crunch their own reports without worrying that data duplication is causing them to work with the wrong numbers," says Mens. As a result, Agio shortened the planning and budgeting cycle by 25 percent.  

Company at a Glance
Based in the Netherlands, Agio Cigars sells around 800 million cigars every year under brand names like Mehari's, Panter, Balmoral and De Huifkar. 

Data Profile
A data warehouse includes Agio's historical financial and sales data, combined with point-of-sale data from wholesalers and shops. It also maintains up-to-date production and manufacturing data.