Punch Taverns improves performance with BI

UK pub group Punch Taverns is using business intelligence (BI) technology to help with acquisition due diligence and improving the performance of its pubs.

FTSE 250 company Punch Taverns is the largest pub and bar operator in the UK with more than 9,500 tenanted and managed pubs. It is also acquisitive, buying Pubmaster for £1.93bn in 2003 and the Spirit Group for £2.68bn in 2005.

David Rowling, CIO at Punch Taverns, said business intelligence data helps the board calculate the right bid offer by predicting the likely performance of an organisation post-acquisition.

In the case of Pubmaster, Rowling said the group's chain of 3,500 pubs had suffered from underinvestment and that the due diligence involved calculating what the probable performance would be following an investment boost after the acquisition.

He said: "Based on business intelligence, we can estimate upside performance post-investment."

Punch Taverns currently uses a combination of Business Objects software and Microsoft SQL Server technology, which Rowling said is used on a "daily basis" by 80 to 90 per cent of the company's 600 employees.

He said: "Business intelligence is a strategic necessity. It means at the unit level being able to make the right decisions quickly."

This means that business account managers are able to get very detailed information on profit and loss, sales and management performance both at an individual pub level and at a company level. The company's telemarketing team also use business intelligence-generated information to identify where sales leads might be.

Rowling said: "We can compare any individual pub to the regional average for that type of pub and we can predict the performance if we change the style of that pub. It helps us to coach managers how to improve the performance of their pub."

One issue often cited by users of BI software is the need to feed clean data into the system and Rowling admitted there is always pressure to maintain confidence in the data provided.

Punch Taverns has a special "knowledge team" to help maintain data integrity and Rowling said it is important not to use too much manually created data which has more scope for error. Much of the information Punch Taverns uses is automatically generated from ERP and finance systems.

Rowling said: "We have one view of the data - one view of the truth."

Punch Taverns' future business intelligence plans include a project to create a role-based portal using Microsoft SharePoint to enable staff to access the data they need for their particular role.