Detailed insight into financial and operational data at the global and local levels

Business Applications and Data Analytics 

Industry 

Axians supported TenCate Grass with the onboarding of new business units in IBM Cognos Controller. Axians also helped with the design of processes, workflows and structures in IBM Planning Analytics, to comply with obligations relating to IFRS16 in a simpler manner. addition, TenCate Grass wanted to make optimal use of the possibilities of Planning Analytics to gain a detailed insight into financial, commercial and other business information to support strategic choices.

TenCate Grass is a global leader in the development, production, installation and maintenance of artificial grass systems for elite sports, recreation and landscaping applications. TenCate Grass has more than 1,500 employees working in establishments in North America, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia- Pacific region. The organisation was already working with IBM Cognos Controller, but following a number of takeovers, they needed a better grip on the figures and to work towards a uniform method of consolidation, reporting and information supply on a global, regional and local level.

OBJECTIVES

  • To provide the business with detailed, up-to-date steering information in order to gain more insight at the global and local levels
  • To work towards a uniform way of visualising and interpreting both financial and operational figures
  • Substantially simplifying the book keeping for lease contracts, to always comply with the IFRS16 standards

NEED FOR MORE INSIGHT AND CONTROL

Alfons Kreule, CIO at TenCate Grass, explains: ‘In 2016, our parent company Koninklijke TenCate was taken over by a private equity fund of Gilde Buy Out Partners, Parcom and ABN Amro Participaties. Since then, we have seen substantial growth, partly through a number of acquisitions. As a global IT department, we faced the challenge of onboarding these new business units of TenCate Grass into our systems and working towards uniform information supplies. We already worked with IBM Cognos Controller for our financial consolidation and reporting. We also wanted to migrate our new business units to Cognos Controller as quickly as possible.

Planning Analytics makes it possible to develop reports and dashboards with data on sales, logistics or manufacturing, as well as financial analyses. Alfons Kreule

Those many transitions made it clear that we wanted more insight into the daily figures on a global, regional and local level, to provide factual support for strategic choices and to make timely adjustments based on up-to-date figures. IBM Cognos Controller is a consolidation tool for the monthly close of accounts and offered our people only limited functionality for obtaining the right insights. Furthermore, it became clear in 2016 that we had to comply with IFRS16, the new standards for administrative processing of lease contracts. Those two challenges meant that we were looking for a suitable solution.’

BENEFITS FOR THE CLIENT

  • A substantially simpler way to generate budgets, forecasts and the close of monthly and annual accounts
  • A simple way to visualise and interpret data with dashboards and reports, worldwide
  • Detailed insight into financial and operational data at the global and local levels

NEED FOR MORE INSIGHT AND CONTROL

Alfons Kreule, CIO at TenCate Grass, explains: ‘In 2016, our parent company Koninklijke TenCate was taken over by a private equity fund of Gilde Buy Out Partners, Parcom and ABN Amro Participaties. Since then, we have seen substantial growth, partly through a number of acquisitions. As a global IT department, we faced the challenge of onboarding these new business units of TenCate Grass into our systems and working towards uniform information supplies. We already worked with IBM Cognos Controller for our financial consolidation and reporting. We also wanted to migrate our new business units to Cognos Controller as quickly as possible.

Axians supported TenCate Grass with the onboarding of new business units in IBM Cognos Controller. Axians also helped with the design of processes, workflows and structures in IBM Planning Analytics, to comply with obligations relating to IFRS16 in a simpler manner. In addition, TenCate Grass wanted to make optimal use of the possibilities of Planning Analytics to gain a detailed insight into financial, commercial and other business information to support strategic choices.

Those many transitions made it clear that we wanted more insight into the daily figures on a global, regional and local level, to provide factual support for strategic choices and to make timely adjustments based on up-to-date figures. IBM Cognos Controller is a consolidation tool for the monthly close of accounts and offered our people only limited functionality for obtaining the right insights. Furthermore, it became clear in 2016 that we had to comply with IFRS16, the new standards for administrative processing of lease contracts. Those two challenges meant that we were looking for a suitable solution.’

THE CHOICE FOR IBM PLANNING ANALYTICS WAS A ‘NO-BRAINER’

Kreule continues: ‘The Axians people have been our partners for years and helped us with the implementation and management of IBM Cognos Controller. They recommended IBM Planning Analytics in order to address our challenges. With Planning Analytics, we could automate the entire workflow relating to IFRS16, from the drafting of lease contracts to the management and termination of contracts. Planning Analytics also offered many possibilities for getting a better grip on our financial and operational data, for example to simplify our budgeting and forecasting. But the principle was that not only the finance department had to benefit: local business units also had to profit from the solution. Planning Analytics makes it possible to develop reports and dashboards with data on sales, logistics, manufacturing as well as financial analyses. And we can combine different types of data, to gain completely new insights. The countless possibilities meant that the choice of Planning Analytics was a “no-brainer” for us.’

Our business units can view figures in detail and support their decisions with facts. We can now also produce reports on our weekly sales in a few minutes.

PROBLEM-FREE IFRS16 COMPLIANCE

‘Planning Analytics is fully integrated with our ERP system, Cognos Controller and other data sources. The tooling enables us to keep our lease administration in order in a smart and simple way for all business units. Planning Analytics offers an integrated module for IFRS16 which automates the entire workflow relating to IFRS16 and contains standard rules for calculating assets with rights of use (ROU) and lease obligations, including future payments, interest and depreciation. Through the integration with Cognos Controller, the lease administration is processed directly in our consolidation and reporting process. In that way, TenCate Grass always complies with the IFRS16 guidelines, without costing us much time and trouble.’

BUILDING ON THE FINANCIAL FOUNDATIONS

Kreule continues: ‘Thanks to Planning Analytics, we have also addressed many time-consuming and manual processes. Our budgeting, forecasting and monthly and year-end closing processes have been substantially simplified because figures are now immediately available. Together with Axians, we have developed processes, workflows and standards, so that we can generate reports and dashboards at the press of a button. In principle, all we need to do is check the figures. What’s more, thanks to Planning Analytics we can justify our figures much more effectively. We have insight into our data to the detailed level so that we can answer substantive questions. The information supply is very up-to-date so that we can always see where we need to adjust. Time zones are no longer any problem. We have all the information available in a few clicks. Furthermore, we now look at the data in the same way everywhere in the world.’

ADDING VALUE FOR THE BUSINESS

‘The next step is to gain a better grip on our operational data, as well as the financial insight. We are now working to set up dashboards and reports based on our sales data. We are making all individual sales transactions from 2017 to the present transparent. We categorise those data in different dimensions, such as region, client, project type, price, article type and margin. Our business units can view figures in detail and support their decisions with facts.

We can also generate reports on our weekly sales in just a few minutes. That used to be a time-consuming job because we had to gather and consolidate all transactions. Now we have all the information available right away. In the future, we also want to add other transactional data to Planning Analytics, such as data from our logistics and manufacturing activities. In that way, we are gaining more insight into our operations all the time and can continue to improve the quality of our business.’

SUPPORT FROM AXIANS

‘The engagement and input of the Axians people helped us enormously during this process. They are very flexible so that we always meet our deadlines, and if we have any questions they are addressed right away. We see that the Axians staff have the kind of expertise that you can expect from a partner. They know what they are talking about and are always on the lookout for things that can be done smarter or better. In short, they are a great partner to work with.’

Jeroen Zeeuw, Manager Smart Finance at Axians, comments: ‘Together with TenCate Grass, we have defined the ideal situation. That led to a roadmap with which we divided the project into different parts. With IBM Cognos Controller, the financial consolidation and reporting were already solid. From there, we put the forecasting and budgeting in order with IBM Planning Analytics and implemented the application for IFRS16. With that, the finance department took an important step towards becoming a real business partner. We are now taking the next step, by also supporting the management and the other stakeholders with valuable insights from reports and dashboards, together with TenCate Grass.

SOLUTION

  •  Creation of a single environment in which data is available for analysis to the detailed level for always remains up to date
  • Development of different standards for creating financial and operational dashboards and reports
  • A fully automated workflow for IFRS16, to easily manage the lease administration for all business units