Many organizations operating across multiple countries face similar challenges: heterogeneous planning processes, excessive reliance on Excel, long budgeting cycles and limited consolidated visibility. This use case illustrates how a multi-entity group redesigned its financial performance management to harmonize practices, improve forecast reliability and strengthen decision-making at all levels of the organization.
Context and challenges
The organization operates across several European countries, with each entity relying on its own planning and reporting practices.
Processes were largely based on local Excel files, resulting in long lead times, version discrepancies and limited traceability of assumptions.
Key issues encountered
Finance teams were confronted with long and resource-intensive budgeting cycles that delivered limited analytical value.
Data consolidation and performance comparison across entities were complex, restricting management’s ability to effectively steer group-wide performance.
Objectives of the initiative
Establish a common planning framework while preserving the flexibility required to address local specificities.
Improve forecast reliability, reduce production timelines and enhance collaboration between finance and business teams.
Implementation approach
The initiative began with a clear definition of target processes and shared key performance indicators at group level.
A unified planning model was designed to centralize financial and operational data, while structuring local contributions through controlled workflows.
Observed results
Planning cycles were significantly shortened, allowing finance teams to focus more on analysis and business partnering.
Management now benefits from a consolidated, consistent and up-to-date view of performance, enabling more effective strategic decision-making.
Key success factors
Strong alignment between finance, IT and business teams was critical to ensure adoption of the new processes.
A phased rollout, supported by structured change management, helped secure the transition toward harmonized financial performance management.
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Last updated on Jan 22, 2026