TÜV Süd: Redesign of financial planning

When TÜV Süd AG was looking for a new solution for its financial planning, it wanted to improve and accelerate its planning and reporting processes. However, the familiar user-friendly interfaces were to be retained. IBsolution’s IT experts therefore developed an individual extension for the desired layout especially for the famous Munich-based company and integrated it into SAP Business Warehouse.

The technical services group TÜV Süd has over 600 locations worldwide − and is more than just a testing institution. The experts advise their customers, test systems and products, certify and train. Around 16,000 employees with extensive industry knowledge ensure the optimization of technology, systems and know-how in Europe, Asia and America.

Transparent unit

Global presence and competence in many specialist areas also require a transparent reporting system with up-to-date and uniform key figures worldwide − with a central reporting, planning and consolidation tool to which all companies are connected. In addition, TÜV Group Controlling wanted as few interfaces as possible and intuitive user interfaces so that users could quickly familiarize themselves with the system.

SAP’s standard software alone was not enough for this. Together with the two add-on solutions AGIMENDO.edit and AGIMENDO.process developed by implementation partner IBsolution, SAP Business Warehouse financial planning now meets all requirements. “IBsolution supported our ideas from the very beginning. The IT experts customized the new solution for us in such a way that we now have a powerful planning application,” sums up Peter Chrobok, responsible for consolidation systems at TÜV Süd. The implementation pleased not only TÜV Süd, but also SAP: Some functions of the new add-ons are to be integrated as standard in SAP Business Warehouse in the future.

Quickly calculated

TÜV Süd AG not only carries out all reporting, consolidation and controlling processes with the SAP solution, but now also has integrated financial planning. All data is interlinked, and in no time at all the financial experts create annual projections for around 150 companies, plan the balance sheet for the next three years, and then perform the group consolidation − all without in-depth IT knowledge. Whereas master data used to have to be transferred manually to several systems, today a single entry is sufficient. This reduces the error rate and increases speed. Time-consuming data migrations from the legacy system to SAP Business Warehouse are no longer necessary − and the employees in the business department can concentrate on their core competencies.

Maintained master data

The add-on software AGIMENDO from IBsolution ensured simple processes, transparent interfaces and a short project runtime. The solution is standardized and preconfigured and can be quickly integrated into the existing enterprise solutions SAP ERP or SAP Business Warehouse. This saves time and costs.

With AGIMENDO.process, controllers have a full overview of the planning processes at all times. These now run centrally for all parts of the group, media breaks are avoided. When the planning round starts, each subsidiary worldwide is automatically informed by e-mail and can thus directly enter their planning − the group headquarters can see missing data at a glance and can ask for it accordingly.

Tight reporting deadlines are no longer a challenge

AGIMENDO.edit allows authorized employees from the business departments to maintain the master data they need for the process control of an integrated financial planning. This is the basis for meaningful reporting. “Corporate planning and reporting are now the responsibility of our business department − and it is much easier for us,” sums up Josef Bichler, Head of Group Controlling. “We now do planning, reporting and consolidation in one system without losing time due to interfaces.”