[?Wouter 0:00:08.5] 0:00:08.5:

Thank you, [?Marijke 0:00:09.4], for the kind introduction, and good afternoon, everyone. A warm welcome to this panel on finance transformation within the financial services industry. Before we dive in, I would like to touch upon some of the macro trends that we see within this industry, and we all know it, it's high inflation, rising interest rates. It's regulatory compliance. That is something on the daily agenda of all my speakers here on stage. For example, at the same time, customers are always demanding a more and more digital-native approach while competitors and geopolitical uncertainty is around the corner. Now, topics like data, combining risk, financial, actuarial data in one single platform, providing the business with the right plans, forecasts, to ultimately make better decisions is on the daily agenda. Think about ESG and sustainability, a topic where all banks and insurers need to comply with in the near future. Digitalization, replacing legacy systems, investing in smart analytics. We have seen some nice presentations from Iver and the team today. 

 

Wouter 0:01:21.6:

Now, the benefit of all this is that it puts finance in the driver's seat. It's no longer about only checking on performance, but it's providing the right insights to the business for ultimately better decision-making. These are exactly the topics I would like to discuss with my three panelists here today. Marijke introduced them already. We have Pieter from Crelan, Soeliko from Federale Verzekering and Matthias Mertens from AG Insurance. So thank you all for joining. I'm going to take a seat. Pieter, I would like to start with you. Since you've been on this journey for several years already with Crelan now, looking back, could you tell us a bit about what the most important tools and drivers are to support finance at Crelan to create more value for the business, besides the traditional reporting and controlling role? 

 

Pieter Desmedt 0:02:13.0:

Yes. Thanks a lot, Wouter, for having me. Indeed, we are using Anaplan in Crelan and, before Crelan, AXA Bank, because Crelan is now a combination of Crelan and AXA Bank. We were using Anaplan already in AXA Bank for, I think, now for eight years or nine years. When I recall in the past, it was a very big Excel and no one dared to touch upon the Excel, and we managed to transform it into a nice Anaplan implementation. I'm sure there are a lot of Anaplan wizards in the room. I'm not an Anaplan wizard. I'm just Anaplan user as a CFO. I have a great team which is in the audience today as well. I think the most important part is, of course, we can have a lot of figures around, and we can overwhelm the ExCo with all the figures. Of course, more important than the figures is indeed creating the right insight, the right analytics. It all starts from the figures, and the fact that the figures are consistent and of high quality, and there is the right data integrity, and then it all comes down to building the right storyline, creating the right insights from those figures. 

 

Pieter Desmedt 0:03:21.2:

Again, if you're overwhelming with everyday figures or looking at daily commercial figures, for example, then you tend to lose sight on the trend and on the strategic topics. So that's key for me, to really have this combination of the right figures, but bringing the insight as well. Of course, you need more than just analytical skills. You need communication skills, you need people that understand the link with the business, etc. So I think for me, the most important and powerful usage of Anaplan is being able to make that link. 

 

Wouter 0:03:58.2:

Yes. Thank you. Very insightful. Matthias, maybe for you, the next question, as you are on a different journey, I would say in the beginning of a major finance transformation. I would like to ask, in the context of the Belgian market, actually, what I just described, why is it now the right time actually to launch that program at AG, and maybe, as you look ahead, what outcomes are you aiming for the organization and for the FP&A teams? 

 

Matthias Mertens 0:04:29.3:

Well, we want it to be future-ready, is I think the most simple answer that I can give. There's a lot of talk about a lot of new technology, about a lot of, let's call it, AI, which we have seen already a lot of today, and we want to be ready. We want to be ready for the future, and that is why we started a finance re-engineering project. This finance re-engineering project does not just entail the implementation of Anaplan, but it goes much further as the context that we, as insurance, face is also changing a lot. This means that there's a lot of updates to law. There's a lot of change in just the technology of automating things and stuff like that. So that's why we want to be ready. We want to be able to anticipate those changes, and if those changes happen, if we did not anticipate them, be able to easily identify what we need to change, how we change it, and in that case be as ready as possible towards the future. 

 

Matthias Mertens 0:05:28.4:

What do we basically see next? We want to build a user-friendly experience, not just for finance but also for risk at AG, where we give the tools towards the business to do what they want to do within not just Anaplan, but within AG as general. At the moment, we are at the start of our journey. It's already been an exciting journey so far, and we will go live the first part, normally next month, so we will finally start to reap the benefits as well of what we have seen. The biggest benefits that we have seen so far is really the speed and the efficiency in which Anaplan can act inside of the models, the real-time updates, and that really falls in line with the strategy of straight-through processing, in which… I want to say one button, but it's still two buttons at the moment, where I can load everything inside of Anaplan, and then the reporting side. 

 

Wouter 0:06:33.0:

Great. Thank you. Thank you for that. Soeliko, a question for you. Since Federale Verzekering has implemented the Integrated Financial Planning Application, which Iver also talked about, what was actually the biggest lesson moving forward from design to execution, and what did it take to secure buy-in from the business? 

 

Soeliko Vercauteren 0:06:57.4:

So the biggest lesson for me was that you don't need perfect conditions in order to get started. We could have waited until we had that fully mature data landscape and that ERP system, but if we did that, we would still have been waiting and delivered nothing. So instead, we decided to move forward with what we had, and we cut the elephants into pieces. So we defined a pragmatic and a phased approach that fits our organization and the pace of change it can absorb. In that context, it's important to take into account that you focus on no-regret moves, that you build on a future-proof, solid foundation on which you can further build in the future for the next steps. Doing a project always creates momentum, so it's helped us to take a step back to really reflect on those big building blocks of the planning cycle. That enabled us to already realize some quick wins and do some optimizations in a very short time frame. The buy-in mainly came from the fact that we didn't focus on building something only for finance, but something that generally helps the business and supports them in doing their planning and their budgeting exercise. 

 

Soeliko Vercauteren 0:08:14.2:

So it was important that they could recognize the way they are working today in the app, and that it is intuitive to work with. So it was important that we took the time to truly understand how they work today -what are their needs, what are their struggles - and of course, in those workshops people come with a long list of issues. So it was important to manage expectations, and we never promised to solve all problems. We were very clear what was outside of scope of the project, what will be in the scope of the MVP 1, and what will be worked on in a later phase of the project. 

 

Wouter 0:08:52.3:

You mentioned a very short time frame. Can you share with the audience how much time it took from start until go-live on phase 1? 

 

Soeliko Vercauteren 0:09:01.3:

We started in May, and the go-live was the beginning of September. 

 

Wouter 0:09:05.1:

Yes. Thank you. I think that's a great example of what the app can bring to an organization. Now, I want to stay with you, Soeliko, for a moment, because my second question for you would be that, for every planning project, but also in your integrated planning journey, let's say, it's breaking down silos, of course. Are you already starting to see more alignment, or where are you seeing more alignment between finance and the business currently? 

 

Soeliko Vercauteren 0:09:35.1:

Yes, just by having a transparent platform to which all stakeholders have access to the full plan and budget, and in which they can drill down to the dimensions that are relevant to them and the assumptions that are important to them, the conversations that we had across management and business committees were already very different. So now business has a better way of really viewing what the impact is of their contribution in the overall plan, and also on other parts of the organization. It really changed the discussions. It was much more about the content of the plan, the underlying assumptions, the risks, alternative scenarios, and not only about explaining the number and reconciling them. So that qualitative discussion, it really resulted in a strong and credible budget and planning exercise, and that's also to a stronger alignment on the decisions taken during the planning cycle. 

 

Wouter 0:10:36.1:

Great. Thank you. Thank you. Pieter, maybe for you as a next question. Within Crelan you work across multiple use cases and departments, of course. How do your peers actually in operations and risk - I know you've been in risk, of course - or the front office see the role of finance today? Is that still control tower functionality, or more like a copilot shaping outcomes? 

 

Pieter Desmedt 0:11:03.4:

Let's start with the message that being in the control tower is nothing… It's not a problem. There's nothing wrong with being in the control tower but, of course, it's our ambition as finance to be rather copilot and to be the partner of the business. Of course, it's a bit boring, and we say it already for a long time. The question is, how do you put it in practice? I think it's about bringing back figures and insight to the business, because we tend to overestimate the financial knowledge which is in the business teams, and we tend to underestimate the fact that if we explain simple things to them, if we bring them figures about their business, if we bring them financial insights about their business, we tend to underestimate the value it brings. Of course, Anaplan helps us a lot with that because we have all the figures over there. It's, of course, beyond planning and beyond forecasting, because you can do it in forecasting. You can do it in planning exercise and stress testing, but that's typically once or two times a year. It's more important, I think, that you do it as well in business reviews. 

 

Pieter Desmedt 0:12:04.9:

That's a good example, because if you start to install business reviews in a company, typically you first get a pushback because business considers it as an administrative burden, as an extra effort. Once you build it together with them, you guide them, you assist them making those business reviews, they understand the power. They understand the insight, and then they can become the partner, and then we're there as a copilot. 

 

Wouter 0:12:28.1:

Yes, absolutely. You mentioned stress testing, Pieter. I believe you run stress testing scenarios on Anaplan. Correct? 

 

Pieter Desmedt 0:12:36.5:

Yes, as part of the overall stress testings we need to do every two years for the ECB, for example. So that's always a very nice, interesting exercise. Anaplan is a key tool for that. 

 

Wouter 0:12:49.2:

Yes. Thank you. Matthias, to you, maybe, as you are in the journey of… In the middle of the program, I would say. How are you making sure that it doesn't just streamline reporting within finance, but also elevates how finance engage with the business? 

 

Matthias Mertens 0:13:07.4:

Well, AG is a very specific company in that we work in a centralized-decentralized manner. That means that we have a centralized environment CFO, CRO office, and next to that, in every single business line, like non-life, life, they all have their own finance function. This means that we have a lot of stakeholders that we need to attend to that use the same program, and it's a challenge. It's the change mentality that you need to maintain. It's very important that you let yourself be guided by a good implementation partner as well, who's done it before. For example, with us, we're doing our implementation with Deloitte at the moment, and they really help us by showing the best practices, how it's done at other insurance companies, and then use quite possibly the more complex situation that we have at the moment to try and standardize it more so that it's not just easier to maintain, but also easier to understand not just by finance, but also by business leaders, management and all those other people. That said, they have their own specific requirements, and we want to give them the most that we can actually give them at the moment. 

 

Wouter 0:14:29.1:

Yes, maybe linking to that, I would like to stay with you. Can you maybe share what you think that the capabilities will be that are the most critical for your teams in the future? Is that analytical skills, data, storytelling, business partnering? Can you give an example on that? 

 

Matthias Mertens 0:14:48.4:

I think it's actually a combination of all of them. From the trends that I've noticed, it's that, even within our teams, we're moving from just number-crunching towards really the storytelling, the understanding. 'Where does my data come from, and what can I do to help us towards the future, to get better results towards the future?' and guide the company or the service line in which they work in to get that specific, better result. 

 

Wouter 0:15:20.2:

Yes. Thank you. Pieter. Maybe a question for you. Since you've been several years in the transformation, how do you see the role of the finance team evolving? Is that spending less time on mechanics, more on insights, or not? Could you maybe share an example on that? 

 

Pieter Desmedt 0:15:39.5:

Yes, sure. I hope that the teams can spend more time on insights and less on, let's say operational work or finding and collecting the data, etc. Of course, we made a big step by replacing all those Excels and replacing it by Anaplan implementation, because in the past we send around a lot of Excels with a lot of operational risk and losing a lot of time. Now we have it in one implementation. Anyway, we spend still too much time in data type of work. I have some great ideas from the previous presentation how the team can work more efficiently, so I will certainly use that insight to challenge the teams because that's the ultimate goal, to bring more insights. Again, it's not about the figures. It's about having the figures, doing the analytics, bringing the insights and building the compelling story. That's our job and that's what we need to do. 

 

Wouter 0:16:28.3:

Yes, thank you very much. I'm sure we can help you with that journey. So Soeliko, for Federale, since you recently went live with the IFB application, how are your people actually responding to the change? Are you already seeing a shift in how they engage in the decision-making? 

 

Soeliko Vercauteren 0:16:52.2:

Yes. So our go-live was quite tight because right after our yearly budgeting and planning exercise started, but people were very positive from the start. Where with some people, I maybe felt some resistance during training sessions, that disappeared completely once they really started using the app in a hands-on manner. It was really well structured, intuitive to use, very user-friendly, very compatible with Excel, which enabled them to get started very quickly with limited training. That means that the impact on decision-making is felt directly if they immediately use it. One of the changes we made during the implementation to our planning process was the introduction of a clear distinction between organic growth and alternative scenarios. Even though it's only a first step towards scenario modeling, it already proved to be very valuable at a management committee level because they now had a deeper understanding of what really drives the budget and the plan, and what are the choices behind it. So, it really changed the conversations. 

 

Wouter 0:18:12.1:

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I'm looking at my moderator. Five. Good. I think we have time for one more question, and I think it will be kind of a round-robin. Same question for all three of you, and that basically, if you would look three years ahead - I know that's hard to do - what do you think is the one capability that finance must absolutely master to stay relevant in this fast-changing environment? Is it AI? Is it predictive insights? Is it integrated planning. Is it something else entirely? I would say ladies first, maybe. 

 

Soeliko Vercauteren 0:18:46.3:

Okay. I think for us that would be adaptability. So it's less about predicting everything perfectly but, like you already said, on anticipating change and that you have the right discussions during the planning cycle, that you are prepared for the unexpected and that your organization knows how to respond when circumstances evolve differently than planned, so that you can adjust plans quickly and help the business understand what is the impact in the financial numbers. For that, for me, we need to move away from one fixed plan and work towards a number of scenarios that are key driver-based, together with the business. We will continue in that direction in the next phase of our rollouts. 

 

Wouter 0:19:39.4:

Thank you. Pieter. 

 

Pieter Desmedt 0:19:41.1:

I think it's a bit of all. So I think the finance function will become even more versatile, so it will be a combination of being able to generate figures, being able to analyze them, bringing the insights, etc., as we discussed. Of course, AI will add an extra layer not only in the sense that it will bring more insight, but of course, it can help us to become more efficient as finance as well, so walk the talk. If we talk about efficiency, we should give the example as well. The third pillar I want to touch upon is, of course, AI will also allow business teams to juggle around with figures. They're typically a bit less savvy in terms of analytical skills, so it might be that we also get a role in terms of being the guard of the correct figures and the correct insights. So, might be an interesting next new role for the finance department in the future. 

 

Wouter 0:20:30.5:

Thank you. Finally, Matthias. 

 

Matthias Mertens 0:20:33.2:

Yes. So I would say flexibility as well. It's important that even though a closing is not going the way that you want it to go, that we are flexible enough to keep on going, that it's not just in the waterfall way, but that we really are able to see, 'Okay, what do we need to do and how will we get there in a specific way?' I think, in that case, it's really important that the finance function embraces technology and uses it towards its full potential that is available, for example, at AG Insurance at the moment, and that you then go ahead and be as flexible as possible. 

 

Wouter 0:21:17.4:

Okay. Thank you. So that leaves me with thanking you all for, first of all, being a customer of Anaplan, embarking on this journey and being a panelist today. I'm sure that if people have questions, they can come and find you during the break. Please, a warm applause for Pieter, Soeliko and Matthias. Thank you.