From Manual Spreadsheets to Automated Analytics: A Manufacturer's Journey
This blog tells Duracell EMEA's story: how a struggling HR team transformed from manual reporting spreadsheets to real-time, automated analytics in 8 weeks—all while improving quality and reducing costs by 87%.
📋 The Starting Point: Manual, Manual, Manual
Picture yourself in Duracell EMEA's HR department in early 2022.
You've got 1,800 employees spread across 28 countries. Oracle HCM is your system of record. You have access to comprehensive workforce data: hiring, turnover, compensation, performance, benefits.
And yet, every Tuesday morning, your team is doing this:
- Export data from Oracle HCM into Excel
- Consolidate data from 14 different regional systems
- Validate numbers, fix errors, investigate anomalies
- Build pivot tables and manual calculations
- Format it into a PowerPoint for Thursday's leadership meeting
- Spend Friday answering follow-up questions and building ad-hoc reports
Sound familiar?
😤 The Pain: When Technology Doesn't Deliver Insights
Duracell invested in Oracle HCM for good reason: it's the gold standard enterprise HR platform. But having a modern system and actually using it for insights are two different things.
The Reality:
- •Critical decisions waited for manual reports (sometimes they waited a week)
- •Adding a new metric meant requesting a custom report, which meant 3-4 weeks of development time
- •Business questions often went unanswered because "it would take too long to build that report"
- •Quality was inconsistent—one person's calculation of "voluntary turnover" sometimes differed from another's
- •Scaling reporting across 28 countries meant proportionally increasing manual work
- •Budget constraints meant most reporting requests were denied
Maria García, VP HR Operations at Duracell EMEA, described the frustration: "We had all the data. We just couldn't access it in a way that was useful. It felt like being in a library with every book you need but no library card."
🔍 The Root Cause
Why was reporting so difficult despite having a modern platform?
The answer: Building reports is a skill. And that skill is expensive and slow.
Traditional custom reporting requires:
- •Business analyst time to gather requirements (weeks of meetings)
- •Technical analysis to understand data models and relationships
- •Report development time (1-2 weeks per custom report)
- •QA and validation cycles
- •Revisions when the delivered report doesn't match business needs
At $4,000+ per custom report, even a modest reporting need (10 reports) costs $40,000+.
For a global manufacturing company managing 28 countries with budget constraints, this was prohibitive.
🛤️ The Exploration: Looking for a Different Path
Duracell's HR leadership explored three paths:
Option 1: Hire More People
Hire additional HR analysts or data analysts to build reports in-house.
- •Cost: $60,000-80,000 per analyst salary
- •Timeline: 3-6 months to hire and onboard
- •Problem: Hiring highly skilled BI developers is competitive; ongoing salary commitment
Duracell rejected this. The company couldn't justify permanent headcount for what was essentially a project.
Option 2: Implement Enterprise BI Platform
Invest in Tableau, Power BI, or similar and have IT team build reports.
- •Cost: $50,000+ per year in licensing + $100,000+ implementation + internal IT resources
- •Timeline: 6-12 months
- •Problem: Overkill for standard HR reporting needs; ongoing licensing/maintenance burden; requires IT project management
Too expensive. Too complex. Too much change management.
Option 3: Partner With a Specialized Provider
Find an Oracle partner who'd built standard HR reporting solutions.
- •Cost: Needed to be fixed and predictable
- •Timeline: Needed to be fast (weeks, not months)
- •Scope: Needed to cover the full range of HR reporting needs they had
This sounded promising. But what provider could deliver 50+ standardized reports in weeks, not months, for a fixed price?
💡 The Conversation That Changed Everything
Enter PCL.
PCL is an Oracle Gold Partner specializing in HCM analytics. They'd developed a standardized OTBI Analytics Reporting Package: up to 50 pre-built reports covering all Oracle HCM functions (except payroll), deployable in 8 weeks for a fixed price of $15,000.
But here's what caught Maria's attention: PCL's approach to requirements gathering.
Traditionally, custom reporting engagements fail not because of technical limitations, but because of misalignment between what was asked and what was delivered.
Business teams say: "We need a turnover report."
Technical teams build: A complex, 47-column analysis of turnover by every possible dimension.
Business teams respond: "This isn't what we asked for."
Rework cycles ensue. Timelines slip. Costs overrun.
PCL had solved this problem differently. They'd invested in PCL HCM Report Assistant™: a guided, AI-assisted requirements template personalized for each HR module.
Instead of business teams struggling to explain what they needed and technical teams guessing what they meant, the PCL HCM Report Assistant guided the requirements process:
- •Business users answered a series of specific questions
- •The system suggested metrics and dimensions based on best practices
- •Requirements were documented comprehensively before any development began
- •Technical teams received crystal-clear specifications, eliminating misalignment
"The brilliant part," Maria recalled, "is that we could complete it on our own schedule, without coordinating a dozen workshops. Our team filled it out over two weeks. By the time we handed it to PCL, they knew exactly what we needed."
⚡ The 8-Week Transformation
Week 1-4: Requirements Done Right
Traditional Approach:
- •6-8 weeks of workshops
- •Multiple stakeholder meetings
- •Business teams and IT teams talking past each other
- •Requirements documents that are 100 pages long but still incomplete
PCL Approach:
- •PCL provides the requirements template (Day 1)
- •Duracell HR team completes it at their own pace (Days 2-10)
- •PCL reviews and validates (Days 11-14)
- •Requirements locked and approved (Day 21)
- •No rework needed because they're comprehensive
Maria appreciated the efficiency: "Our team could work on this alongside their regular jobs. No week-long workshop disruptions. No waiting for IT to find time. We worked with PCL asynchronously, which actually fit our global team's schedule better."
Key insight: The 4-week timeline wasn't just about speed. It was about doing requirements right. Duracell's team had time to think deeply about what they actually needed. They weren't rushed through workshops.
Week 5-8: Technical Delivery Without Drama
With requirements locked, PCL's technical team got to work building OTBI reports.
OTBI is Oracle's native analytics layer. It's built into every Oracle HCM deployment and doesn't require custom development, special tools, or additional infrastructure.
Reports were built in phases:
- •Week 5: Foundational reports (hiring, recruitment pipeline, headcount)
- •Week 6: Talent reports (turnover, compensation, performance)
- •Week 7: Analytics reports (compliance, benefits, advanced workforce metrics)
- •Week 8: Training, validation, production deployment
Each report was delivered within 3-5 days of being built. Duracell reviewed and provided feedback. Revision requests were minor (mostly formatting and drill-down preferences) because the underlying requirements were sound.
By Week 8: 50 production reports, live in Duracell's environment, team trained, dashboards operational.
🎯 The Results: Four Transformations
1. Cost Transformation
| Metric | Traditional | PCL Solution | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost for 50 reports | $100,000+ | $15,000 | $85,000 |
| Cost per report | $4,000 | $300 | 13x cheaper |
| Implementation timeline | 12-18 months | 8 weeks | 75% faster |
| Rework cycles | 2-4 | 0-1 | Minimal |
Duracell achieved comprehensive reporting coverage for less than the cost of building a single custom report the traditional way.
2. Time Transformation
Once reports went live, the impact on team productivity was immediate.
Before (Manual Reporting):
- •40+ hours/month spent building, maintaining, and distributing reports
- •Critical metrics took days to access (they had to be requested and manually built)
- •New report requests required 3-4 week development timelines
After (Automated Analytics):
- •5-10 hours/month on report maintenance and distribution
- •Critical metrics available in real-time via dashboards
- •New report requests could be accommodated within weeks
Recovered productivity: 30-40 hours per month that Duracell's HR team could redirect to strategic work.
At an average fully-loaded cost of $50/hour, that's $18,000-24,000 per year in recovered time—and that's just the direct financial value. The strategic value (retention initiatives, compensation planning, organizational design) was likely much higher.
3. Quality Transformation
Here's where the PCL HCM Report Assistant really proved its worth.
Duracell's HR team and PCL's technical team had completely different mental models:
Traditional misalignment:
- •Business said: "Turnover analysis"
- •Technical built: A 40-column spreadsheet with every possible turnover metric, including ones Duracell never asked for, with confusing calculations
PCL alignment:
- •Business filled out: Detailed specification of which turnover metrics mattered (voluntary vs. involuntary), which dimensions were needed (department, location, tenure), which calculations were needed
- •Technical built: Exactly that—clean, simple, useful
- •Result: Reports on first review matched business requirements
Quality improved because requirements clarity improved.
Maria reflected: "The requirement assistant ensured we got exactly what we needed—no rework, no missed requirements. Every report that arrived met expectations."
4. Strategic Transformation
The most significant impact wasn't financial. It was strategic.
With real-time access to workforce analytics, Duracell's HR team could finally be proactive instead of reactive.
Examples:
Voluntary Turnover Analysis:
- •Identified two departments with elevated voluntary turnover
- •Led to targeted retention initiatives (compensation review, career pathing)
- •Estimated impact: Retained 3-4 key employees = $200,000+ in replacement cost savings
Hiring Pipeline Analysis:
- •Revealed that certain job families had extended time-to-fill
- •Triggered process improvements and expanded sourcing channels
- •Reduced average time-to-fill by 15% in subsequent quarters
Compensation Benchmarking:
- •Identified pay equity gaps across geographies
- •Informed 2023 salary adjustment planning
- •Ensured market competitiveness across EMEA regions
Compliance Reporting:
- •Automated multi-country labor compliance reporting
- •Reduced audit preparation time by 50%
- •Ensured adherence to local labor regulations across 28 countries
None of this was possible when reporting consumed 40+ hours per month of HR analyst time.
📈 The Long-Term Story: Value Sustained Over 2+ Years
Duracell didn't view this as a one-time project. They built a platform:
Year 1 (2022):
- •50 reports deployed and operationalized
- •40+ users trained across EMEA
- •Baseline metrics established
Year 2 (2023):
- •8 additional reports added (leveraging initial OTBI framework)
- •Self-service adoption increased (department managers accessing dashboards directly)
- •Data literacy improved (HR team became more analytics-fluent)
Year 3 (2024-present):
- •Continued expansion of reports
- •Integration with workforce planning cycles
- •Dashboards used for quarterly business reviews with executive leadership
The $15,000 initial investment has generated:
- •Year 1 savings: $85,000 (avoided consulting costs) + $24,000 (productivity recovery) = $109,000
- •Year 2 ongoing value: $24,000 (productivity) + estimated $50,000 (strategic initiatives enabled) = $74,000
- •Year 3 ongoing value: Similar to Year 2
2-year ROI: 600%+
💼 Why This Story Matters for Your Organization
Duracell EMEA's journey reveals three critical insights:
1. The Quality Insight
The biggest cost in reporting isn't technical development—it's requirements misalignment. Traditional consulting spends weeks in workshops trying to understand business needs, then still gets it wrong. PCL inverted the approach: invest in comprehensive requirements upfront, then execute cleanly. Result: faster, cheaper, better.
2. The Oracle Insight
If you've already invested in Oracle HCM, leverage it. Don't bolt on new BI tools. Don't hire custom developers. Use Oracle's native OTBI capabilities with a partner who understands them. Low risk. Fully supported. Sustainable.
3. The Strategic Insight
Manual reporting is a strategic anchor. It chains your HR team to data plumbing instead of strategic work. Automating it frees your best people to focus on talent, retention, compensation, and organizational design—where they create actual business value.
📊 The Numbers Worth Remembering
$15,000
Total investment for 50 reports
8 weeks
Full implementation timeline
40 hrs/mo
Productivity recovered
$85,000
Cost avoided (vs. traditional development)
13x
Cost advantage per report
2+ years
Sustained value from initial investment
600%+
ROI over 2 years
🚀 What Could Your Organization Achieve?
If your HR team is spending 40+ hours per month on manual reporting, you're likely looking at similar economics:
- •Cost to automate: $15,000
- •Monthly productivity recovered: 30-40 hours
- •Annual hard savings: $18,000-24,000
- •Payback period: 6-10 months
- •Strategic value created: $30,000-100,000+ (retention, compensation, org design initiatives)
The question isn't whether you can afford to automate reporting.
The question is: Can you afford to keep doing it manually?
✅ Next Steps
If this story resonates with your organization:
- Assess your current reporting: How many hours per month does your HR team spend on manual reporting?
- Calculate the cost: Use your fully-loaded labor costs to estimate annual expense (likely $100,000-150,000)
- Explore solutions: Look for approaches that emphasize quality requirements and leverage your existing Oracle investment
- Make the business case: Present the ROI to your CFO—the math is compelling
🏢 About PCL
PCL is an Oracle Gold Partner specializing in HCM analytics and reporting solutions. We help organizations transform manual, spreadsheet-based reporting into modern, automated analytics—enabling HR teams to focus on strategy instead of data plumbing.
The PCL OTBI Analytics Reporting Package delivers up to 50 standardized reports in 8 weeks for a fixed price of $15,000. Built 100% on Oracle OTBI, it's low-risk, sustainable, and scales with your organization's needs.