“We benefit from new, valuable insights in our own data.”
Vienna, March, 12, 2020 – Hirtenberger Group, headquartered in Austrian Hirtenberg, with subsidiaries in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany, specialises in the fields of metal processing, automotive and environmental plant engineering. Hirtenberger Group’s staff exceeds 2000 people.
Obviously, a group company of this size needs a fully integrated financial planning framework. In the past, corporate planning – including forecasting and reporting – was conducted based on Excel. A change in the management and the ever-growing complexity of countless Excel-sheets being sent from and to different departments and countries motivated Hirtenberger to re-evaluate their corporate planning. They were looking for a professional tool integrating all aspects of corporate planning and reporting. Specifying different planning assumptions, what-if-scenarios and the absolute reliability of a ‘Single Point of Truth’ with accurate data at every point of time were their key requirements. After thoroughly evaluating different vendors, Hirtenberger decided for smartPM.solutions based on Unit4 Prevero technology. An easy to use, modern user interface, data transparency and over all the various options of flexible and integrated planning on multiple layers were especially convincing. The project started in summer 2019, go-live for reporting and planning is scheduled for spring 2020. Budget planning for 2021 will already be performed in the new system.
Intuitive handling, high flexibility and truly beneficial new insights in our data
Thomas Weiler, Finance Director Hirtenberger Group: `The high flexibility of the software and its intuitive handling convinced all along the line. Data reliability and consistency, and thus the foundation for proper business processes give us an enormous trust for fast and consistent decision making in several planning scenarios. Overall, we profit from completely new insights in our data, explaining better than ever our business units’ status a well as their respective development.’ In the past, Hirtenberger used data of the previous planning period, partially adjusting the calculations in case: ‘This can not be compared to the extremely transparent procedures in future.’ They did not only recognized the benefit of the system, says Weiler: ‘Particularly the high expert-skill level of the whole smartPM.solutions Team, the permanent availability of the employees and last but not least their grounded economic know-how, which was not only very helpful defining the planning processes, convinced us.’
Alexander Hein, CEO and founder of smartPM.solutions: ‘We are very happy that Hirtenberger decided for our solution. The data and process-security are important issues being essential for an active control of the business. The flexibility of the software will furthermore allow for a lot of extra time for entrepreneurial decision making.
At the moment 5 power user operate the new system; after going live 40 user will work with the tool. Planning and forecasting will be organized decentral from different countries and departments with a final consolidation of the data in the headquarter.