About the Client
Hrvatski Telekom (HT), a leading telecommunications provider in Croatia, offers a wide range of services including fixed and mobile telephony, wholesale, internet, and data services. With almost 5,000 employees and annual revenues of 1B+ EUR, the company has a strong presence in the country and beyond, providing telecommunications services and building communication networks across the Croatian territory – they have a major stake in Bosnian telecom provider, HT Eronet.
Seeking to automate manual planning processes, HT aimed to streamline P&L reporting across its four subsidiary companies to enhance operational efficiency. With a complex framework of revenue orders and a quarterly planning cycle engaging more than 70 planners across the group, the need for a robust, agile, and intuitive solution was clear. The Farseer project started to tackle these challenges and change HT’s Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) operations.
Financial Planning Challenges at Hrvatski Telekom
Hrvatski Telekom faced several challenges in its planning process. The primary issue was the manual planning, which required generating and consolidating approximately fifty spreadsheet input sheets for every planner each quarter. This task was time-consuming and prone to errors. Additionally, the different revenue models across business segments made the aggregation process cumbersome.
The process of managing master data was also a hurdle. Any change in planning data required manual updates across all input sheets, which was inefficient. The allocation process was lengthy, with the task of allocating planned values to group reporting in the existing legacy planning solution, taking several hours, which could have been spent on strategic analysis.
Communication was another challenge. Email and phone were the main channels used for controlling the planning process, which wasn’t efficient given the complex nature of Hrvatski Telekom’s operations. Moreover, accommodating the diverse planning needs of multiple subsidiaries and their business segments, amidst more than 18,000 revenue orders, highlighted the need for a more streamlined and automated solution.
These challenges collectively pointed to the need for a solution that could streamline the planning process, enhance data accuracy, and improve operational efficiency across the organization.
Streamlined Financial Planning with Farseer
Hrvatski Telekom turned to Farseer to tackle its planning challenges. Farseer’s ability to easily integrate with existing data sources allowed for real-time access and automated allocation of financial data, which was crucial for smoother planning.
A key feature was the OPEX planning that provided centralized, departmental, and individual planning options, making the planning process more organized and efficient. Additionally, custom models for revenue planning were developed to suit various companies and segments, accommodating several service models, which was important due to Hrvatski Telekom’s varied operations.
The ability to generate real-time P&L reports was another major advantage, allowing for instant comparison of planned versus actual figures. This feature, along with quick top-down planning, versioning, and what-if simulations, made the planning process more agile and insightful.
Other reports, like various KPIs and nonfinancial metrics such as user base reports and analysis at the KPI level, were also included, offering a well-rounded view of the financial scenario and aiding in better decision-making.
The impact was significant. The time taken for allocation was cut down from 8 hours to under 5 minutes, marking a huge step forward in efficiency, and serving as a great example for other telecom companies aiming to improve their financial planning processes.
Implementation Journey
The journey of implementing Farseer spanned 3.5 months and involved several key steps that were crucial to the success of the project. Key to this was the management of input sheets which was now centralized, streamlining the process significantly.
The consolidation of P&L for four legal entities and business segments was another major step. The automatic export of allocated plans to Deutsche Telekom’s reporting tool was also set up, further enhancing the efficiency of the process.
The project was propelled forward by an extremely capable and professional team on the client’s side. They had a clear vision of what was needed and desired for optimizing their workflows. However, the absence of appropriate tools had been a bottleneck until Farseer came into the picture. With the right tools, their expertise could finally shine, making a big difference in the operational landscape. The client also had an internal team of dedicated Farseer admins, which played a key role in facilitating the transition and ensuring smooth integration.
The outcome was a drastic reduction in the number of Excel sheets used, transitioning 70+ planners to Farseer, and shortening the quarterly forecasting and reporting timeframe from 10 days to less than 2 days. This transition not only streamlined the planning process but also made it more efficient and reliable.
As they became more familiar with Farseer’s flexibility and advanced reporting capabilities, the client independently realized that they could leverage the platform for ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) data collection and reporting. By compiling data from over 200 users company-wide, they were able to easily create comprehensive ESG reports for their parent company in Germany. This additional use case further underscored Farseer’s ability to centralize critical data and enhance reporting transparency, aligning perfectly with Deutsche Telekom’s sustainability goals.
Great response from users
The transformation journey with Farseer resonated extremely well with the team at HT.
Here’s what Mirna Sambolić, Director of Strategic Projects in Finance, said:
“Farseer turned our dreams into reality. The tool is so intuitively easy to use that whoever logged in – continued to use it. Farseer is a refreshment in terms of the ease of planning and reporting.”
Future Plans
After a successful first phase focused on ESG reporting, OPEX and P&L planning, Hrvatski Telekom is planning a second phase. This phase will include detailed planning of the workforce, cash flow, and balance sheet using Farseer’s platform. The goal is to keep improving the financial planning processes at Hrvatski Telekom by using Farseer to cover more areas of financial analysis and planning.
