Overview
One of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies had experienced dramatic growth, but the management information produced by the Finance team had not kept pace with the changing requirements of the business.
If the finance function were to fulfil its vital business partner role it would need to become more efficient and ‘fit for purpose’. A team led by one of Novo Altum’s consultants was brought in to implement an action plan for sustainable change.
By re-designing and rationalising management reporting, this approach positioned the finance function to provide the insightful information the company needed to drive growth in sales and profitability.
The Challenge
The existing management information reporting process had evolved over time as the business grew and was no longer aligned with the strategy of the business.
It was clear to our consultant that a much tighter focus was needed to remove the inefficiencies that distracted the Finance community from adding real value to the business.
A radical change programme would be required to ensure that management information reflected the business’ revenue drivers and cost consumption, and a process for deploying and learning from the information provided had to be introduced. The duplication of information also needed to be eliminated and the manual intervention required to produce it significantly reduced.
The Solution
Novo Altum’s director devised a two-phase best practice strategy.
The first phase involved a thorough review process, including gathering an inventory of existing management reports, assessing the gaps and redundancy in the data against the business operating model and strategy, and interviewing key stakeholders to gain agreement on the information that would add value to them.
After analysing the information collated, the second phase of work developed an integrated design for a reporting suite to efficiently, and effectively, meet the needs of the business. This required close collaboration with the client to gain agreement before the new management reports could be put into production.
Results
This approach enabled reduction of the volume of reporting by c.30% and ensured that the finance function could focus on delivering management information which provided real insight on business performance.
By delivering significant value to the business through sound management information, the Finance team was able to change the emphasis of their role from producers of reports to analysts / business partners, applying their skills to drive the business forward.
