A smarter close: How a €3.4B leading HR group consolidates with confidence

As a leading European provider of specialized HR and staffing solutions, this company serves diverse markets across multiple countries. With over 73,000 employees, the organization operates a unique decentralized business model consisting of 10 autonomous business units (powerhouses) and 50 boutique brands, each with its dedicated finance team and chief financial officer (CFO). This company generates an annual revenue of €3.4 billion, reflecting its expansive scale and complexity.

Navigating complexity: Consolidation and reporting challenges

Managing consolidation and reporting across more than 250 legal entities, over 20 ERP systems, and multiple currencies created a complex financial environment. Their legacy financial platform, Tagetik, was initially set up for a much smaller organization (€350 million in scale) and could no longer meet their rapidly growing needs. The rigidity of this outdated system limited their budgeting capabilities, forecasting flexibility, and automation potential. The cumbersome, manual financial processes and disconnected spreadsheets posed risks to efficiency and audit readiness, significantly hampering their agility, especially as they prepared a potential initial public offering (IPO).

To address these complexities, the company selected Anaplan to modernize and transform their financial planning and analysis (FP&A), consolidation, and reporting. They also leveraged Anaplan for IFRS 16 compliance, tax management, and cash forecasting, enabling seamless integration and alignment across their entire financial landscape.

Anaplan stood out for our flexibility, cloud-native architecture, and rapid deployment — enabling the finance team to adapt quickly and confidently to change, while seamlessly managing a dynamic group structure shaped by ongoing M&A activity and internal restructuring.

Swift and strategic implementation

The organization embarked on a highly collaborative and accelerated implementation journey, leveraging both internal and external expertise. An internal model builder partnered with implementation specialists, Delaware and Numlix, to streamline the process, ensuring agile and adaptable financial reporting models. Despite the scale and complexity of their business, they completed implementation in just three months — kicking off in June 2024 and going live by September.

Driving efficiency and accuracy

The transition to Anaplan resulted in transformative outcomes:

• Month-end close reduced by 25%, from eight working days to six
  
• Consolidation runs that previously took nearly an hour now complete in just 2-3 minutes
  
• Significant efficiency gains and enhanced auditability through automation and built-in audit trails
  
• Instantaneous generation of board-level reports, eliminating manual interventions and reducing errors
  
• Intercompany eliminations are now easy to follow and require minimal maintenance
• Automated connections to the finance data platform replace manual Excel flat file uploads of trial balances
• Reviewers now rely on an automated closing checklist with built-in task reminders, reducing manual follow-ups and email volume while maintaining control and accountability

A strategic foundation for continued growth

By adopting Anaplan’s platform, the organization established a strategic foundation for long-term success that drives efficiency, agility, and compliance. Key benefits include:

• Centralized, accelerated consolidation processes
• Flexible, intuitive user interfaces with a short learning curve to enable their finance team with an easy-to-use system
• Real-time, automated disclosure management ensuring regulatory compliance
• Support for multiple global accounting standards such as IFRS and GAAP
• Readiness for future growth and IPO objectives