Auckland, New Zealand—Oct. 4, 2012—Delegat’s Wine Estate, a producer and marketer of the Delegat's and Oyster Bay wines, now utilizes IBM’s analytics technology to better understand the effects of changes in grape supply, capital structures, foreign exchange impacts and distribution decisions to predict long-term business growth. As a result, the application of IBM software revolutionized Delegat’s financial planning capabilities, increased profitability and allowed expansion of its local and international operations.
“The IBM solution provides richer analysis and more robust forecasting across the business, giving our management team and investors’ confidence in our ability to make sound decisions about the future,” said Matt Boswell, Corporate Financial Planner at Delegat’s Wine Estate. “We can now run simulations to predict the effects of changes in our operations. For example, we can predict whether selling and promoting a particular wine in one country will cause supply constraints elsewhere. We can then structure the supply side of our business to meet these shortfalls. We can also predict which option will prove most profitable overall.”
While the winemaker undertook a well-structured growth plan to meet the international demand for its wines, its dependence on spreadsheet-based planning tools was insufficient for the complex dynamics associated with grape harvests and global wine production. After implementing IBM’s analytics technology, Delegat’s is now able to make more insightful decisions about its vineyard portfolio such as renegotiating leases and exploring new land acquisitions. It also made improvements to business operations including shortening Delegat’s planning cycle by up to six weeks and reducing the time needed to generate reports by 90 percent.
“It is crucial for internationally focused companies like Delegat’s Wine Estate to be confident in their forecasts of future business need and growth. Delegat’s can now model supply-side and demand-side data more accurately and quickly than ever before,” said Stephen Elliott, New Zealand Manager, IBM Software Group. “The ability to look into the future has proven successful in helping the winery promote and sell its products in the most profitable countries and expand its business both domestically and internationally.”
