Société Générale Standardizes, Accelerates, and Improves Budget Planning Accuracy across Global Enterprise
 
 

Société Générale Standardizes, Accelerates, and Improves Budget Planning Accuracy across Global Enterprise

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Société Générale is one of the oldest banks in France and one of the largest European financial services groups. Based on a diversified universal banking model, the company has 32 million customers and operations in 83 countries. It provides retail, corporate, and investment banking services, as well as insurance, asset management, and securities products to a growing customer base.

In 2010, Société Générale launched a business transformation initiative, known as “Ambition SG 2015,” that encompassed more than 50 projects. As part of the initiative, the company wanted to consolidate and accelerate its lengthy budget process, from budget data entry within the group’s various units to consolidation at the holding company level. It also looked to improve budget forecast quality and standardize and automate monitoring at every level.

To support budget planning transformation, Société Générale selected Oracle Hyperion Planning, and worked with Oracle partner Micropole to implement the solution. While still in the deployment phase, Oracle Hyperion Planning is showing potential for improving budget data quality and accelerating the planning process at both a local and group level. The company, in early deployment, accelerated the annual budget process by two months while achieving better data and greater agility to respond to changing market conditions.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Société Générale

  • “Oracle Hyperion Planning Plus provides a reliable, solid foundation for budget reorganization across the bank’s many subsidiaries and entities. We are simplifying processes at a local level and accelerating consolidation at the head office level.” – Gael Gillois, Rugby Program Director, Société Générale

  • Simplify and improve the quality of the budgeting process in line with the bank’s  business transformation program, called Ambition SG 2015
  • Automate and standardize budget development, simulation, and monitoring across all subsidiaries and business units to improve accuracy and accelerate processes
  • Deploy a flexible core planning system that enables the head office to define best practices, while providing regional groups with the flexibility to meet local requirements
  • Provide the institution with greater agility in responding to changing financial market conditions by accelerating the end-to-end annual budget process by two months

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Replaced assorted budget management tools, including Excel spreadsheets, at subsidiaries and branches with Oracle Hyperion Planning
  • Standardized all budget development, monitoring, and consolidation processes to ensure best practices while using Oracle Hyperion Planning functionality, such as streamlining budgeting processes at the branch, regional, and corporate levels
  • Deployed the solution at headquarters within 10 months, incorporating the bank’s best practices for budget management, while giving flexibility to the group’s 10 central departments and 300 legal entities to configure the application to their needs
  • Simplified budget simulation, including modeling new bank service tariffs, using the solution’s scenario modification functionality
  • Increased satisfaction feedback and quick adoption among 700 users, including management controllers, data entry personnel, and managers who monitor budget indicators
  • Simplified annual budget development at the head office and accelerated data input in the regions with the solution’s easy-to-navigate interface
  • Improved data entry accuracy and budget consolidation proficiency thanks to Oracle Hyperion Planning features, such as fill forms and the adoption of a common budgeting language
  • Accelerated the annual budget consolidation process by several weeks, thanks to instant integration of budget charts from units, replacing a time-consuming process of consolidating several thousand Excel spreadsheets
  • Reduced budget errors with end-to-end automation—from data entry at the local level to consolidation at head office
  • Provided managers with value-added budget reports and historical and current performance indicators for accounts, outstanding client amounts, outstanding loans for retail bank units, staff and activities, and comparisons of budget targets versus actuals
  • Improved head-office agility in responding to changing market conditions via faster consolidation of budget data and improved data quality

Why Oracle

Société Générale’s selected Oracle Hyperion Planning because it met the organization’s requirements for easy deployment of best practices across the organization, while enabling local units the flexibility needed for their unique requirements. It also integrates easily with Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management.

In addition, the organization appreciates that the solution enables users to enter data directly into the company’s PeopleSoft Enterprise financial management modules.

Partner

Following an invitation to tender, Société Générale retained Oracle Partner Micropole for two projects: consulting on reorganizing the budget process based on best practices supported by Oracle Hyperion Planning and deployment of Oracle Hyperion Planning.

The bank particularly appreciated Micropole’s ability to mobilize resources at the right time, providing up to 30 professionals during some project phases. It also paid close attention to the timeline to ensure an on-schedule launch. The team completed the implementation in 10 months, in time for the new budget cycle.   

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