[Case study] Business Intelligence: finally a bridge between finance and management?

Digital tools are helping CFOs to become the driving force behind value creation. Provided they can control the increasing flow of data that results...

The beauty of Business Intelligence is that it is becoming the CFO's best asset in this process, enabling him or her to make the best possible proposals. What better way to take on a new role with decision-makers?

In this article, we provide you with feedback from Verdié Voyages on how Business Intelligence has improved its performance.

[Issues] Finance and management: chasing time is not conducive to dialogue

Finance departments are constantly being called upon by decision-makers, who need indicators for day-to-day management. In two words: reliable data without delay! Only then will finance departments be able to sit down at the strategists' table.

But what happens when the CFO collects information before a decision is taken?

Initially, the finance teams update their databases, while remaining captive to the constraints of the IT Department (D+1, D+3, etc.). They then have to cross-reference information from various accounting and treasury software packages, or Excel spreadsheets. Finally, they make manual adjustments to neutralise this or that effect, because the exceptional is often the rule.

Getting reliable data at the end of the chain, and the time needed to analyse it, is quite a challenge. The result? Decisions are taken on the basis of information that is incomplete, irrelevant or already obsolete. And managers end up doing without this analysis...

How does Business Intelligence solve these problems? Here's a concrete example from Verdié Voyages

Implementation of the MyReport decision support solution at Verdié Voyages

At Verdié Voyages, the MyReport Business Intelligence tool has decompartmentalised the company.

BU managers and the finance department work hand in hand to optimise performance.

What issues need to be resolved?

Verdié Voyages has 4 brands, 35 agencies and over 200 employees.

This configuration brings with it a number of issues to be resolved:

• Time-consuming and tedious processes,
• Too much manual processing in Excel,
• Little time for analysis and management,
• Need to equip management with a management dashboard.

3 years after joining the group, the CFO wanted to overhaul certain internal processes.

Data reporting was so complex and time-consuming that it was impossible to have an overall view of performance in real time. As a result, the finance teams were unable to provide steering indicators to the various BUs. The company was compartmentalised, with no synergy between finance and the business lines.

What's more, the finance team was too dependent on the IT department. In addition to having to ask the IT Department to make data available in line with structural changes, the finance department had to adapt to the availability of the IT Department, which was itself heavily involved in its day-to-day tasks and other ongoing projects. Employees therefore had to manually rework the reports and accounting statements supporting the annual accounts in Excel.

Which solution?

Since adopting the MyReport :

Management automatically receives a snapshot of daily sales, as opposed to once a month previously. This is essential for our business.

Laurent Albouy, DAF

The tool has therefore helped to establish "a cross-functional approach within the company, which breaks down organisational barriers and encourages concerted decision-making".

The benefits

A 360° view of business performance

By centralising data in a data warehouse and making it usable and accessible, MyReport gives the CFO a 360° view of the performance of each business unit.

Empowered employees

Thanks to MyReport, data is accessible and usable. Employees no longer need to make requests to the IT department. Business units have a high degree of autonomy in drawing up their reports.

Accessing data is now easy, we can access all the company's figures quickly and easily.

Laurent Albouy, DAF

Optimising financial analyses

In the words of Laurent Albouy:

"We operate in an ecosystem with a high volume of accounting flows. For example, MyReport has enabled us to save around 15 days' work on justifying the customer accounts of our travel agency network.days to justify the accounts receivable of our travel agency network, because data updates between our business products and our CEGID accounting are now almost instantaneous.

Management now automatically receives a snapshot of daily sales, as opposed to once a month previously. This is essential for our business, as we need to analyse our network's sales activity on a daily basis by comparing it with the cumulative total (YTD)".

In conclusion, BI makes it possible for financial and operational decision-makers to work together

Thanks to BI, new processes are being created that enable informed decisions to be taken more fluidly.

In practice, the CFO and his teams can work on a solution that collects data from different sources, and makes it reliable and structured. There's no longer any need to update three tables manually, and to check the links to ensure that the reporting is reliable. Nor is there any need to create a dashboard from scratch.

With this management tool, the CFO has a major operational insight into the company's activity. He can calmly present his analysis and propose levers for action to his managers. This creates a relationship of trust and a genuine dialogue between equals.

A new relationship that benefits both parties, so why miss out?