Bridgestone improved financial forecasting with SAC

The successful digital transformation, which simplified and standardised forecasting throughout the organisation, earned Bridgestone and Flexso a Silver Award at the SAP Best of Customer Success ceremony in June 2022.

Financial forecasting: challenging circumstances

At Bridgestone, financial forecasting used to be a time-consuming business. Each region manually performed its own monthly forecast in Excel, following its own methodology. It took multiple days to extract the latest planning information, update figures, make calculations, and share the results with the HQ finance department. Several additional days were needed to consolidate the different reports for the top management.

Moreover, external files and databases were not accessible to everyone. Financial controllers worked in various locations, and the many data flows decreased accuracy and overall speed. Bridgestone wanted an integrated platform to accelerate the forecasting process, reduce its complexity and the risk of (manual) errors, and establish a single source of truth for all operators.

Simplified forecasts through SAC

To accelerate budget forecasting and the consequent decision-making processes, Bridgestone partnered up with Flexso. They chose SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) to simplify and generalise forecasting in the entire organisation.

After all, SAP Analytics Cloud does not only offer a faster, more intelligent way of working; the data platform also works as a single source of truth within the organisation. Aggregated planning on the SAC platform has replaced the lengthy procedures from the past with a rolling forecast that can be completed in just one day, resulting in more accurate information and much faster.

Change management and training opportunities

Switching from local Excel files to a SaaS (software as a service) solution meant a move towards a cloud platform that values continuous innovation and frequent new product features. However, such a digital transformation requires thoughtful change management and sufficient training for all stakeholders. Flexso and Bridgestone had to find the right balance between ongoing updates and soothing stability on the planning platform.

During the implementation of the new data solution, bi-weekly meetings ensured that all users remained closely involved. Clear testing scripts allowed for better end-to-end regression testing and improved management of the tenant updates. They also taught users how to deal with the quarterly updates.

After the roll-out, all key users received additional training on process changes and tool functionalities. By the time Bridgestone’s new cloud-planning platform went live, all users were familiar with the SAC product roadmap. Furthermore, they had access to a state-of-the-art solution, tailored to their business requirements.

Up next: more possibilities

Bridgestone wants to keep innovating and developing its overall forecasting and decision-making processes. In a next phase, SAC will cover all financial budget planning cycles. Those include not only monthly budget forecasts, but also annual ones, with a higher level of detail and complexity. There will be an additional focus on user-friendliness for all divisions, as well as an integrated add-in for Microsoft Office – ambitious steps towards boosting user adoption and enabling even more data input in the near future.