Transforming Finance operations for strategic growth in a family-owned business

This family-owned security company operates across the BeNeLux and other European countries, offering physical protection, monitoring, event security, and training services. The company employs several thousand people and generates 663 million euros in revenue, ranking among the global top 10. Its BeNeLux division, with over 2,000 employees, leads the market in technology solutions, while the BeLux Finance department in focus for this project includes about 24 team members.

The company’s acquisitions, management changes, and internal organic growth resulted in a significantly larger finance team, particularly in comparison to the organization's size and operations. The lack of internal processes and procedures, however, coupled with a heavy reliance on manual tasks, led to accounting errors and master data issues. 

These challenges caused widespread frustration and exacerbated the company's financial difficulties. A lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities led to a "do-everything" approach, increasing inefficiencies and highlighting the need to address these issues systematically.

TriFinance’s Expert Practice lead Vicky Posthumus, Project manager Ben Tuerlings and Project consultant Margot Van Kildonck proposed a three-phase plan.

“First, we analyzed and validated the As-Is situation through workshops with the Finance department”, Vicky explains. “The second phase focused on designing a To-Be situation and fit-gap analysis. This led to the creation of a target operating model (TOM) and roadmap for the future in the project’s final phase.”

Workshops and business interviews revealed existing challenges and bottlenecks within finance operations. Insufficient and poorly implemented systems (IT, ERP and CRM) clearly increased manual workload and caused certain tasks within the Finance department to be repeated. Additionally, the division of the Finance department across two offices created a knowledge gap leading to inconsistent execution of certain processes.

The Finance team reported that organizational problems often landed on their desk, forcing them to prioritize issues from other departments over their own tasks. This led to an increased workload, heightened stress, and delayed deadlines. Their focus on delivering fast, customized solutions to satisfy others revealed inefficiencies, which TriFinance documented in an As-Is analysis shared with management.

Beyond technical observations, TriFinance identified interpersonal challenges. Some team members expressed frustration over long-standing inefficiencies that had been repeatedly raised with management but remained unresolved. Resistance from within the Finance team also surfaced, reflecting the toll of these persistent issues.

“Ensuring full engagement from all stakeholders was critical to gaining a clear and accurate understanding of the Finance department, its operations, and ways of working,” Margot Van Kildonck says. From the outset, the finance team played an active role in the transformation journey, as their insights were essential to reshaping finance operations. “They provided input to build an accurate understanding of the current situation. Additionally, we observed strong commitment from C-level management,” she adds.

As a cornerstone of any organization, the Finance department supports every internal business unit. The TriFinance experts interviewed team members across departments, capturing their thoughts, needs, and perspectives on the Finance department’s role and performance to gain a complete overview of its operations. This collaborative approach laid the groundwork for a thorough understanding of the existing processes.

The initial phase revealed that inconsistent processes, lack of standardized procedures, and technical inefficiencies were limiting the Finance department's performance, particularly in financial analysis and cross-departmental business partnering.

Insufficient integration of systems and tools led to excessive manual work for the finance team. While their collaboration and dedication were valued by other business units, significant improvements were needed in operational efficiency and analytical capabilities.

‘The key objective of this change project,’ Ben Tuerlings explains, ‘was to design a target operating model (TOM) to optimize the department’s operations. To enhance effective change management within the team, the TOM was fine-tuned in co-creation with the client, involving both the Finance team and senior management.'

Two sequential TOMs were developed: a mid-to-long-term version and a long-term version. In line with change management, these models were created to construct gradual change and ease the transition to a redesigned organization. The TOMs are based on the fit-gap analysis from the As-Is and To-Be phase. They include a description of roles and responsibilities aligned with the organizational chart. These roles and responsibilities were designed using TriFinance’s best practices and the client’s overarching structure. A roadmap was also provided to guide the implementation process.

In addition to delivering a high-level solution, TriFinance proposed a plan to support the client in implementing the target operating model. The first step here is to evaluate and map the "Source-to-Pay" process, where quick wins have been identified. Additional financial processes to address include Record-to-Report, Order-to-Cash, and General Finance, covering the Finance department.

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