Case Study: Unilever achieves major efficiency gains and faster global market reporting with OpenText Analytics

Unilever Bestfoods Makes Efficiency Gains with Actuate e.Spreadsheet Engine

Unilever Bestfoods faced a labour-intensive, error-prone process for collecting weekly market-research data from many countries, with information arriving by fax, phone or email and requiring manual collation. The goal was to use the internet to let research partners submit spreadsheet-based data securely and cost-effectively to a central database within an aggressive three-month timeline.

Actuate’s e.Spreadsheet Engine, implemented by eMiddleware using its Global Trading Platform, delivered an in‑browser, Excel-style template with validation, local calculations and direct extranet writeback to the central Oracle/WebLogic repository. Deployed on schedule (most development completed in about a month), the solution eliminated re-keying, reduced errors, sped reporting to executives, centralized maintenance and support, cut costs and strengthened relationships with research partners.

Unilever