Scottish Brewer Chooses Comshare BudgetPLUS Scottish Courage selected Comshare’s BudgetPLUS 3.1 to help manage Web-based budgeting and forecasting for its five on-trade companies, Courage, John Smith’s, Scottish Brewers, Newcastle Breweries, and National Sales. During the first phase of implementation, BudgetPLUS will be rolled out to 50 to 100 users for the first quarterly forecast, who will need only a Web browser and password to manage their forecasts. All processing will take place on a server coupled to an Oracle database. “Our finance community found it difficult to consolidate and build up forecasts for overheads and product margins using our transaction system and Lotus models,” says Glen Davies, Courage finance director. “We needed a flexible, user-friendly solution with robust Web-based functionality.” BudgetPLUS’s spreadsheet interface is familiar to the users who input forecast data and facilitates easy conversion of existing spreadsheet models. Scottish Courage plans to use BudgetPLUS as part of the forecasting process as early as July 2000 and the annual budget in the longer term, according to Davies. Forming the beer division of Scottish and Newcastle plc (S&N), Scottish Courage was formed in 1995 after S&N acquired Courage. This S&N division is responsible for developing, brewing, marketing, selling, and distributing the company’s numerous beer brands.
