User-friendly efficiencies at Meneba

More structure in budgeting and consolidation processes

Finext provided the solution for Meneba by creating a user-friendly efficiency solution. Meneba has a long history; the grain specialist has been around since 1915 and supplies various types of flour products to a variety of clients. The company is capital-intensive; with some 180 people, it generates a turnover of around 200 million euros.
Like many medium-sized organizations, Meneba works a lot with Excel around its reporting and budgeting processes. "We have a nice ERP package, but it was not optimal around reporting. By necessity, we started using Excel a lot, and have become experts in the field," says Eric Taal, CFO at Meneba.

From data crunching to information management

Among the many Excel versions, however, the organization wanted to achieve user-friendly professionalization and efficiency. "The Excel sheets were often person-specific. That is less easy in terms of transfer and challenging in terms of maintenance, especially in the budgeting process," Eric continues.

"We really wanted to support people with analytics instead of spending a lot of time on data processing."

"Some models contained such complex cross-references that we no longer dared to make adjustments. It is also less easy to create alternative cross-sections. In addition, the number of sales reports had grown to the point where it was necessary from a performance perspective to work with multiple powerpivot models for the same data set." The processes around budgeting were also time-consuming. "We were sending different models to users, which we also had to get back, and then edit to make interim updates to the budget," says Gerard Koops, controller at Meneba.Reason enough to look for a solution that offers more structure. "We wanted to move from data crunching to information management; really support people with analyses instead of spending a lot of time on data processing," Eric explains.

Embracing Excel

For this user-friendly efficiency solution, Meneba chose Vena Solutions. "Vena appealed to us because it was close to the existing situation. We didn't have to rebuild much, so the implementation time could be limited," says Gerard.This proved to be true in practice. The existing Excel models were critically examined and then transferred to Vena in a fairly similar fashion. "Actually, this is how Vena was intended: you embrace Excel and file off the rough edges," says Benno van Ingen. Benno is closely involved in the implementation from Finext. With this spreadsheet platform, not all flexibility needs to be jettisoned. "You don't nail down the processes in a corporate solution," Benno continues. "As a user, you are in control of your information flows yourself." As a result, the solution is very familiar to users in the business.

Fast learning curve

Another objective during tool selection was ease of use and management. "Other packages we looked at require a lot of programming on the back end. With Vena, you don't have to be able to program." "Within Vena you can do a lot yourself," agrees Benno. "Most financials practically live in Excel, so you already have 50% of the knowledge needed for Vena. You then only need to acquire a little extra knowledge to be able to create a model yourself."

Getting started yourself

Meneba therefore opts for a coaching model for implementation. With this "co-build" approach, the organization and the consultant pull together so that the users already gain experience during the project. Eric and Gerard make a lot of time for this, one to two days a week. By the way, this is a requirement for the success of this approach. "There are two sides to the coaching model," Benno explains. "On the one hand, Vena is very suitable for this; it is a simple application without too many buttons that you can still do a lot with. On the other hand, Eric and Gerard also had the time and skills to actually do this."

"The processes are faster and less error-prone."

Eric thinks freeing up so much time as CFO is a logical choice. "You benefit yourself as well. There won't be a large project team in which everyone is a cog; it's just a matter of pushing through now and then you can get to work. In addition, the personal contribution of the CFO increases the speed of implementation; as CFO you are also an important end user and in this way you can quickly reach decisions around the database structure. Also, the involvement of the CFO strengthens support for the use of the package in the various departments of the organization."

Faster and less error-prone

The approach works. After creating the design and providing the training, Benno comes by one more day a week to watch and advise. Eric: "We mainly get advice on how to tackle something ourselves. For us, it is the reason we are very satisfied with Finext."
Eric and Gerard are enthusiastic about the results of the switch. The processes are faster and less error-prone. There has also been a user-friendly efficiency improvement. "Take the sales-budgeting process, for example. Previously, an account manager would send his input to finance, from which finance would create a budget report and send it back to him so he could see the impact of his budget estimates. Because updating sales budgets was labor intensive, it could take several days for updates to be processed. Now all updates are saved directly into the database by the account manager. This allows the account manager to call the report himself and make any adjustments. Another big advantage is that everyone is looking at the same live data. In the old situation - due to the enormous amount of reports - we used four power pivot models, which had to be updated individually manually."

Maximum support

Meneba is in the midst of a process to be acquired by a Belgian organization. "Our strategy as a company is to sail into a safe harbor, with this acquisition we are succeeding," Eric says. "The Belgian organization is in the same market with the same issues and there too Excel is king. The biggest challenge after an acquisition is customer retention; how do you make sure you keep your customers. Information is very important then."
Here, too, Eric wants to take steps with the new solution. "Vena is a strong tool for setting up sales reporting at the Benelux level in no time, so that we can provide maximum support to the salespeople."

Comfort and user-friendly efficiencies

Asked for advice for other mid-sized organizations looking to streamline their budgeting and reporting processes, Eric is clear. User-friendly efficiencies are recommended. "Besides ease of use, pricing is definitely a consideration. Know what you are special at as an organization and what is required to do that. Then choose a solution you are comfortable with, because at the end of the day, you have to work with it and it remains your responsibility."