Local freedom and uniform reporting at Oilinvest

"We want to modernize the entire financial reporting," says Ilja Ansink, Senior Accountant Projects at Oilinvest. To achieve this, the oil company is switching to a modern Performance Management solution. The choice fell on uniform reporting in CCH Tagetik. "We were working with 20-year-old spreadsheets, which meant a lot of manual work. We want more uniformity and more harmonization, within one user-friendly system."

Oilinvest is a major player in the European downstream oil industry, with the main brands Tamoil and HEM. The oil company - headquartered in The Hague - employs about 1,000 people.

"Optimizing reporting allows us to make better strategic decisions."

Better strategic decisions with unified reporting in CCH Tagetik

The improvement around financial processes supports the oil company's strategy. "By optimizing reporting, we can make better strategic decisions. For example, in choices around investing in a new gas station and trade-offs between internal or external financing," Ilja continues.

Good steering information is also important in choices around subsidiaries. Ilja: "If you know which business segments are the most profitable, you can decide in which subsidiary you want to invest more."

Standardize decentralized organization

Oilinvest is a decentralized organization, within which the subsidiary organizations have a great deal of autonomy. They are given a substantial role in the project. "We wanted to create local support for the new system by really involving the subsidiary organizations. That way we could give and receive knowledge," says Niels Sterkenburg. As a Finext consultant, Niels is closely involved in the implementation of uniform reporting in CCH Tagetik.

In order to maintain local freedom while standardizing financial reporting, Ilja and Niels visit the subsidiaries. Ilja: "One of the success factors is that Niels and I visited all the subsidiaries together, some even several times. During such a visit, we spent 2-3 days in a room with the people who have to do it."

Participation during construction

Through these local sessions, the users were given room to express their wishes already during the development of the new system. This participation was immediately made concrete, says Ilja: "During the sessions, Niels immediately incorporated the adjustments into the system. This allowed us to validate on the spot whether this was what the users intended. At the next daughter, we also took the modification back with us."

That does mean something to the project team. "In many organizations, headquarters makes all the decisions around setting up a system. Here it was completely different," Niels says with a laugh.

So much room for input from users also brings dilemmas. For example, when local requirements call for too much detail in the system. "Then it is nice that Niels has a lot of knowledge of the technical possibilities of the system, and I know the subsidiaries well. This way we were able to find a good middle ground during the discussion," says Ilja. The manner in which this is done is important, Niels believes: "Not only indicating that something is not possible, but also offering a solution as to how it can be done."

Tension between local desires and standardization

This approach successfully resolves the tension between local wishes and harmonization - so characteristic of decentralized organizations. "The reporting is standardized, but each subsidiary organization arrives at the figures through a different process. We chose not to let the subsidiaries change the processes, but to adapt Tagetik to the processes," says Ilja.

The flexibility of CCH Tagetik helps set up the requirements properly. Niels: "Each subsidiary organization has a piece of customization, with its own workflow and work process. Then all these flows come together into one report."

For that, it is important to dive well into the local processes. Ilja: The subsidiaries have a lot of knowledge and are very capable in the processes. Together we can spar well about the customizations in the system. Accounting is a fairly generic process, so you can easily harmonize it to Dutch law once everything is in the system."

Shaping the frameworks together

Ilja is enthusiastic about the approach, in which headquarters and subsidiaries add value together. "During the project, the relationship with the local organizations has improved. It gives us more of a collaborative role, where together with the subsidiary organizations we flesh out the framework outlined by the board."

"Where it used to be a black box where the numbers were in, now the CFO can easily get more depth."

The board is also positive about the results of the new consolidation and reporting process. "The CFO gets the numbers and can go into depth himself, or through a targeted question to the financial controller. This makes it much more transparent. Where before it was a black box where the numbers were in, now he can easily get more depth," says Ilja.

The modernization of financial processes is divided into two phases. The next phase revolves around management information. In this, Ilja will take the same approach: "In order to do the analyses properly, the focus will first be on establishing the definitions. This will be a joint quest by the board, subsidiaries and headquarters to establish a conclusive list of terms."

Approach for decentralized organizations

Asked for advice for other organizations wrestling with the tension between local freedom and standardization, Ilja is clear: "Don't underestimate your subsidiaries in the amount of knowledge they have, and above all include that knowledge in your processes. That will make you wiser yourself. In a decentralized organization, every part is different; you have to take the right approach to that."