Whirlpool optimizes business resources to support global competitive strategy

Whirlpool needed the ability to dynamically adapt key elements of its strategy to changing market conditions, while executing on a platform of highly efficient, low-cost and integrated global operations. Whirlpool realized that making business intelligence more transparent across the company would give it the means to adapt its operations to a wider range of external factors, and do so more rapidly and effectively. To reach this point, Whirlpool knew that unifying its disparate regional operations into a common global platform was essential, and that the key to achieving this was to standardize its processes, data and systems.

IBM worked with Whirlpool to translate a global, uniform data and process framework to Whirlpool's SAP environment, thus creating a single ERP solution where separate regional systems had existed before. The showcase of the new solution, a decision-support dashboard known as Business Performance Management (BPM), provides a unified view of realtime finance and procurement information. IBM also worked with Whirlpool to define and implement a set of optimized global business processes running on a consolidated IT platform.

The benefits Whirlpool has accrued from its new solution are directly in line with its goals of freeing up resources, and then using them to strengthen competitive performance:

· 5% reduction in overall IT costs in each of the past four years

· Improved ability to manage the company and optimize performance on a global basis by virtue of standardized business processes

“Our vision-of optimizing our business resources by directing them to where they matter most-has succeeded in producing more value for our business. By helping us to execute on it, IBM has made us a far stronger global competitor.” Esat Sezer, CIO and Corporate Vice President, Whirlpool.