Implemented Vena in less than three months, achieving ROI within a year
Shortened budgeting cycle from over four months to just two weeks
Reduced number of people working on budgeting process from three to one
The Challenge: Reduce Manual Budgeting Efforts To Facilitate Rolling Forecasts
As Business Controller for Schuberg Philis—a leading Dutch provider of mission-critical IT services—Philip Onderwaater and his team were managing over 100 budgets in Excel.
And while their budgeting process was well-structured, they knew with big ambitions on the company's horizons, they would need to scale: adding more frequent budgeting cycles, exploring multiple scenarios and introducing rolling forecasts to gain deeper insights.
“That’s when we decided not to stretch Excel beyond its limits,” Philip explains. “We weren’t just looking to fix a problem—we were preparing for a more dynamic and data-driven approach to planning. Monthly or quarterly cycles, instead of just annual ones, meant we needed something more robust.”
With that in mind, the team evaluated a range of FP&A platforms—eventually narrowing it down to three. One of them was Vena, a solution Philip already knew well. “My previous company used Vena,” he says. “So when it came up as an option for our rolling forecasting project, I was glad to see it in the mix.”
Streamlined Budgeting and Future-Focused Insights With Vena
Ultimately, Vena was the solution Schuberg Philis chose. “It was the speed of implementation, the flexibility, the fact that it was Excel. The price was also attractive,” says Philip, who adds that Vena “passed the checks with flying colors” when it came to data security, a key focus for the company.
Schuberg Philis’ implementation partner, Finext—a specialist in optimizing financial processes through technology—helped Schuberg Philis solidify their decision and get Vena up and running. In under three months, Philip and his team were starting to realize the benefits of the new platform.
They’ve since introduced automation for four monthly scenarios, centralized their data and set up rule-based calculations. And in just a month, they revamped their P&L to offer more valuable and immediate insights. “As a business we’re growing quite fast, and we're also changing the way we operate—how we forecast, how we measure things on a weekly basis. And one of the big benefits of Vena is that we can model the changes quickly,” Philip adds.
Vena lets them save time on the processes they rely on and quickly access the financial insights they need, which came in especially handy when the company went through an M&A process last year.
Vena helps the Schuberg Philis team track performance and look ahead for future trends and even allowed them to redesign their pricing model. “Traditionally in IT services, people’s time is sold by the hour. We don't like that model, though—we like to sell outcome based. Vena allows us to model scenarios of outcomes and helps us to be who we want to be,” Philip says.
The overall Vena experience was very good. The implementation was very quick and the payback period of the investment was within a year. We had a multiple return on investment within a year, and overall we are a very satisfied customer.”
Philip Onderwaater
Business Controller, Schuberg Philis