Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles

Case Studies

Simulate flexible scenarios in real time

Value-driver-based long-term planning at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles

Meet the client

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is a brand of the VW Group. The focus in the company is on the production of light commercial vehicles for commercial use as well as vehicles for private customers in the lifestyle, family and camping sectors. The product range is sold with country-specific configurations in over 100 markets. This results in a diversity of variants that far exceeds that of other large-series manufacturers. It also creates complex data dimensions. In order to guarantee transparent and flexible planning in this situation, the large amount of data on sales information and vehicle types must be coordinated efficiently.

The challenge

At Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Controlling must always respond to change and transformation, as is the case with the electrification of commercial vehicles. In addition to the electrification of the automotive industry, areas such as mobility as a service, transport as a service and autonomous driving are relevant topics that require completely new approaches from controlling and thus present new challenges to the controlling area. Furthermore, the volume of data in controlling is growing and it is becoming increasingly difficult to focus on the most important drivers. With Valsight , VW Commercial Vehicles would therefore like to focus its controlling on wesfactors and become faster.

In addition, multi-year planning at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles was decentralized before the introduction of Valsight. The data was distributed across different company levels and data bases (mainly Excel files). In addition, the planning was very detailed. On the one hand, this led to lead times of several months. On the other hand, cause-effect relationships could not be clearly traced. The accuracy conveyed by the level of detail led to the opposite: at the time of completion, the detailed data no longer necessarily represented the company reality.

Thanks to Valsight, we can achieve one of our main goals: avoid false accuracy and become faster.

Julian Höfers

(former) Financial Planning & Analysis, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles

The solution

The optimization of planning at VWN is based on the introduction of a new planning approach, made possible by a new technical solution that allows this approach to be implemented optimally. VWN Controlling, for example, now plans driver- and simulation-based with Valsight and has thus raised its planning processes to new digital standards. Through the use of driver models, multidimensional, complex models are clearly represented. Different business units can be connected and related with the help of the model logic, whereby cause-effect relationships become clear. An example of this is the reduction of the markets to be considered. Instead of focusing on all of the more than 100 markets, the focus is now on around one-fifth of these markets, which nevertheless represent more than 90% of the earnings contribution. Damit wird eine transparente und einheitliche Planungsgrundlage geschaffen.

Instead of complicated communication across different levels, the exchange takes place via Valsight in a way that is visible to all parties involved. Various scenarios can then be created and calculated in Valsight. The integration of assumptions and measures enables a direct comparison of different scenarios. For example, it is possible to quickly calculate what effects the use of a different type of drive in certain vehicle classes would have on VW Commercial Vehicles’ planning results.

The planning process takes place in two phases. The first thing that is mapped in Valsight is quantity planning: Sales Controlling enters the sales quantities for this and simulates initial scenarios for itself. Translation results Select target language. Currently selected: English (US) These are important to see what would happen if, for example. desired sales volumes could not be produced in the plants. Secondly the value planning follows, in which the majority of the inputs by the individual ranges takes place: The procurement controllers make the inputs for the procurement, the selling controllers for the selling, the production controllers for the production.

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Added value through Valsight

Valsight helps meet the needs of emerging business units. In addition, Valsight is the means for Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles to reduce complexity: With Valsight, the aim is no longer to focus exclusively on details, but to identify the key value drivers and work with them. Driver-based planning is thus a central function that Valsight fulfills.

The Valsight software solution is a valuable support here, especially for five to ten-year planning, and helps to reduce fictitious inaccuracies. The Valsight team is always on hand as a partner and dives deep into Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles’ business model to provide comprehensive assistance and make the best possible use of the software.

The use of Valsight ensures higher quality, speed as well as effectiveness of multi-year planning – and leads to a new agility in controlling. The introduction of Valsight at VWN reduced the complexity of processes, created transparency about cause-and-effect relationships, ensured higher data quality, increased flexibility and speed, and also strengthened the role of controlling as a business partner and driver of digital transformation.