Idex centralizes budgeting and expands

At a glance

• Idex needed to centralize the budget within the same tool and integrate data from the finance business system, but also technical data (invoicing, payroll, etc.)
• The budget process was very time-consuming and tedious, taking 5 months in total, and was therefore only carried out twice a year.
• Pigment was initially deployed to around a hundred people - but in the near future Pigment will be used by 400 employees as a reference tool for financial management
• Partners involved: MeltOne for solution implementation, EPO Conseil for project management.

Idex is a French company that develops, designs, finances, builds and operates local, low-carbon energy infrastructure for the supply of heat and electricity for buildings, cities and industry. The company is made up of 6,100 employees (including 150 people within finance) mainly in France, but also in Belgium and Lithuania.

Before the integration of Pigment, Idex's finance teams faced several major challenges hindering their efficiency and the group's growth: a siloed and manual budgeting process, with only a partial view of the data. Several tools were necessary to reconcile the information, and the main tool also did not allow for reforecasting, scenario planning, or complex modeling. In total, the entire budget process took around 4 to 5 months to be completed.

Faced with growing user dissatisfaction with the existing tool, Idex decided to launch an ambitious transformation project. Idex commissioned EPO Conseil (a French Consulting firm) to find a new EPM solution.

The aim was to completely restructure Idex's financial processes with a robust and powerful platform allowing a better flow between operational (local teams) and financial (central teams). Idex ultimately chose Pigment for its sleek user interface and advanced planning capabilities.

Effective change management to drive adoption

Idex & EPO Conseil began a change management project, aiming not only to implement and adopt a new EPM tool, but also to completely review budget processes and data analysis methods. Workshops were organized with administrative and financial managers and operational staff to understand their needs and adjust the tool accordingly. In total, more than 23 people were involved in this workshop phase, supervised by partner MeltOne.

MeltOne ensured that technical requirements were met and identified possible optimizations using Pigment. The integration of end users in Pigment platform tests made it possible to adjust the tool in real time, thus ensuring smooth and personalized adoption.

Pigment stood out from other vendors for its ability to manage large amounts of data without compromising system performance, as well as its easy integration with existing business applications. This flexibility allowed for smoother internal development and faster user adoption.

The close collaboration between Idex, Meltone and EPO Conseil made it possible to implement the new budgeting process in just four months.

The results

Pigment's native advanced modeling capabilities enabled Idex's finance department to centralize the budget, integrating business and technical data such as invoicing and payroll into a single tool. This has significantly improved the accuracy of financial analyses, making it possible to quickly detect anomalies and simulate the financial impacts of budget assumptions and scenarios. With one click, users can access accounting transactions, for more efficient management, reducing gaps between forecasts and reality.

Idex also now has the ability to create and manage multiple planning scenarios, enabling faster response to market changes by being able to anticipate the financial impacts of a decision or variable and to take action.

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