A global strategic procurement company asked Centida to improve the management reporting process in the controlling department. This article tells how Centida came in with a successful long-term solution.
Centida has successfully worked with customers from many industries, including telecom, IT, banking, retail, pharma, and manufacturing. Our clients approached us for the combination of hands-on experience and theoretical knowledge in the areas of finance and management.
Challenges
The client company had challenges within its controlling department. Workers spent a significant amount of time and effort manually preparing monthly reports to management. When executives needed to see management reports, the controlling department gathered data, stored in Excel, and analyzed the reports for each individual request.
Usually, controlling is the largest and one of the most important areas in finance. Since controlling supports planning, budgeting, and cost control, having an effective controlling department is essential for any company.
Solution
First things first, Centida experts analyzed the situation in the department. They reviewed existing reports, all the business requirements and processes, looked into IT infrastructure and source files.
Out of all the Business Intelligence (BI) solutions suited for management reporting, the client had chosen Microsoft Power BI. Power BI proved as the best, most flexible and cost-effective solution to solve the company’s challenges. Centida supported a vendor selection process with a competitive analysis of the BI market.
After choosing the right BI tool, Centida built a Power BI data model that reflected the company’s controlling needs.
The experts also took into consideration past and present data from several sources and restructured the information. As a result, data could be compared in different ways, time and various dimensions. This resulted in the creation of the data model as a “single source of truth” for all the financial controlling requirements within the company.
Finally, Centida provided numerous in-house trainings on the use of Power BI and new reporting processes for company staff. As a result, the controlling department learned how to use Power BI as a self-service tool and create business reports as needed.
Result
After the Power BI implementation and training, the company employees started to use the new tools. Within a 6-months period, the controlling department replaced Excel reports with Power BI with minimum manual efforts involved.
As a result, the client was satisfied by Centida’s level of service and expertise. As the old proverb goes – give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for life. Likewise, Centida provides long-term solutions to its clients, making sure their success has a lasting, positive impact.