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Chapter 2 Global E-business and Collaboration 85

analytics tools at the company’s disposal means and taking note of the exceptions, such as regions that
that the same information is presented with more are losing market share the fastest, or areas that are
granularity and specificity than ever before. booming and require more resources, P&G can devote
The Business Sphere is mostly used by upper-level time and energy where it is most needed.
P&G managers and executives, but the company was Managers and employees are now able to make
determined to extend the same principles deeper faster and better decisions than were previously
within the business. That’s where the Decision possible. Other benefits of the project have been the
Cockpits come in. P&G has started to give more of its reduced complexity involved in generating a statisti-
employees access to the same common data sources– cal report, as well as cost reductions from maintain-
over 58,000 employees now use the technology. ing one standardized set of data across the enterprise
These cockpits are dashboards displaying easy-to- instead of duplicated, redundant data. P&G has seen
read charts illustrating business status and trends. the number of e-mails generated by employees drop
The cockpits feature automated alerts when impor- sharply, as more workers can answer their own
tant events occur, control charts, statistical analyses questions and obtain their own information using
in real time, and the ability to “drill down” to more Decision Cockpits. Better messaging and video will
detailed levels of data. help employees pull in anyone needed to make a
One of the major goals of the Decision Cockpits decision. The company is also able to better antici-
was to eliminate time spent by P&G employees debat- pate future events affecting the business and more
ing the validity of competing versions of data found quickly respond to market stimuli.
in e-mails, spreadsheets, letters, and reports. By
Sources: Shirish Netke and Ravi Kalakota, “Procter & Gamble —
providing a one-stop source of accurate and detailed
A Case Study in Business Analytics,” SmartAnalytics, March 5,
real-time business data, all P&G employees are able 2012; Chris Murphy, “Hard Calls, Big Risks, and Heated Debate,”
to focus instead on decisions for improving the busi- Information Week, August 13, 2012; Brian P. Watson, “Data Wrangling:
How Procter and Gamble Maximizes Business Analytics,” CIO
ness. Both the Business Sphere and Decision Cockpits
Insight, January 30, 2012; Chris Murphy, “Procter & Gamble
encourage P&G employees and managers to “manage CIO Filippo Passerini: 2010 Chief Of The Year,” InformationWeek,
by exception.” This means that by looking at the data December 4, 2010.

CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What management, organization, and technology 3. How are these systems related to P&G’s business
issues had to be addressed when implementing strategy?
Business Sufficiency, Business Sphere, and
Decision Cockpits?
2. How did these decision-making tools change the
way the company ran its business? How effective
are they? Why?

customer an invoice. Customer service representatives track the progress of the
order through every step to inform customers about the status of their orders.
Managers are able to use firmwide information to make more precise and
timely decisions about daily operations and longer-term planning.
Supply Chain Management Systems Firms use supply chain management
(SCM) systems to help manage relationships with their suppliers. These
systems help suppliers, purchasing firms, distributors, and logistics companies
share information about orders, production, inventory levels, and delivery of
products and services so they can source, produce, and deliver goods and
services efficiently. The ultimate objective is to get the right amount of their
products from their source to their point of consumption in the least amount of
time and at the lowest cost. These systems increase firm profitability by

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