21 February 2024
Varo: Transforms data into insights and strengthens operational productivity
Varo: Transforms data into insights and strengthens operational productivity
The Company
With over 1250 employees currently, VARO was born in 2012 through a joint investment between Vitol (commodity trading) and Carlyle Group (investment) to fill oil sales and distribution needs in Western Europe.
VARO aims to lead in this market segment by supplying crude to its refineries (one in Switzerland and one in Germany), where they manufacture products such as gasoline, diesel, and heating oil, among others. These products are then transported, stored and ultimately sold to their customers.
With a production average of 16,500 barrels per day, VARO has established itself as an experienced, safe and reliable company operating in Switzerland, Germany, Benelux and France.
The Challenge
The main challenge that Varo faced was creating a sustainable, flexible and scalable solution that would initially enable it to support the most pressing operational needs and which would function at a later stage as the foundation of the entire analytical solution.
Before Analytics implementation, the organisation faced a “huge amount of data from different sources and had difficulty integrating and aggregating all that data. Several collaborators spent much time working with complicated spreadsheets with results we didn’t understand. Misunderstanding data, control, and inefficiencies led to several problems”, says Tom Rowe, Group Treasurer and Risk Manager.
Therefore, in 2016, BI4ALL was selected to develop and implement organisation analytics when all was purely manual and the business side needed help getting a 360-degree view of many crucial processes. The organisation focused on addressing the financial and business processes and decided in advance to build a Data Warehouse with a long-term vision.
According to VARO’s IT Manager of Digitalisation & Data Analytics, Daniel Cadete, it is essential “that data is available and ready for use by everyone in the organisation to stimulate more self-service analytics, in other words, for the business to do its analysis without having to resort to the IT Department. The organisation wants to have business operating entirely on a good basis”. He also notes that “there is much data which is produced in the oil industry, so it becomes necessary to combine this information with the organisation’s data and produce insights into it. The aim is to have more teams working with Analytics tools and solutions, having available data so everyone in the organisation can use it”.
More efficient, agile and reliable decision-making
A critical project in managing the logistics chain efficiency has been started. BI Manager explains that “instead of just automating, what was done was to bring more value and give the department more information than it had before, and we have seen many improvements in the financial area; the CFO had to basically compile all data manually to get a 360-degree view of the processes and now, with a single click, he can see all at once”.
For the CIO, Daniel Wicki, “Analytics is a crucial part of IT strategy because it allowed VARO’s business areas to analyse data in a way that has never happened before, enabling them to make better decisions based on data they have.”.
Group Cash Manager Virginia Sigrist points out the advantages that Analytics Solutions have brought to your daily life: more efficiency and less time searching and analysing information. Before, making several daily reports from the various group companies was necessary, which took a long time, besides the difficulty accessing the systems. “Now, I have much more time to focus on specific business points to improve certain processes. I also find that collaboration between teams is much better, much easier to collaborate and makes everything more efficient”, says Virginia Sigrist.
“It was exciting because we have seen business changing over the last three years, and we have more analysis. This helps us with daily tasks, allowing our employees to focus more on making decisions and improving their daily work”, says Daniel Cadete.
The Solution
The technological solution implemented at VARO started to respond to the operational departments – Treasury and Logistics – to calculate, respectively, treasury forecast and stock reconciliation between various systems.
Gradually, the solution has been extended to other departments/areas, such as finance management, sales, refinery control, supply chain, and retail, being today the leading analytics tool for about a hundred users.
Today, the solution is evolving to provide an ever-faster upgrade (from a near-real-time perspective), as well as a growing self-service capability that enables users to consume, work and enrich the information with their insights.
According to the IT Manager of Digitalisation & Data Analytics, Daniel Cadete, “The strategy for the future is to empower more teams with Analytics because VARO wants to ensure that all teams have a good foundation of analytics tools and solutions at their disposal.”
Testimonials
"BI4ALL collaborators are very, very skilled, technically top-notch, and focus not just on doing the technical stuff, but on delivering value to the business and doing more than what is requested."
Daniel Cadete
IT Manager of Digitalisation & Data Analytics
"BI4ALL excellence has been a key factor for VARO to start working with BI and Analytics and developing its platform. The value we take from this is enormous and BI4ALL will continue to be a partner for years to come to further develop and make the most of our data."
Daniel Wicki
Chief Information Officer
"Data Analytics solutions have brought more efficiency and less time to research and analyse information. Previously it was necessary to make several reports per day, from the most diverse organizations in our group, which took a long time, in addition to the difficulty of accessing the systems. Now I have much more time to focus on specific business points, to improve certain processes, and I also consider, that the collaboration between the teams is much better, it is easier to collaborate and it makes everything more efficient."
Virginia Sigrist
Group Cash Manager
"We learned what we needed very quickly and we are very impressed with BI4ALL’s work. I would definitely recommend BI4ALL to other organization."
Tom Rowe
Group Treasurer and Risk Manager
