GNDI reduces accrual process by 38% with Oracle Cloud EPM

Founded in 1968 in São Paulo, the NotreDame Intermédica Group (GNDI) is a healthcare payor composed of NotreDame Intermédica, in the healthcare segment, and Interodonto, focused on dental care. GNDI currently has the largest number of beneficiaries in Brazil, with about 6.4 million customers across the country. The group focuses mainly on selling healthcare plans that use its own network, which is composed of clinical centers, hospitals, and laboratories.

One of GNDI’s main initiatives in recent years has been the so-called “data-driven journey.” The company wanted to focus on the strategic use of data to guide decision-making in an increasingly assertive way, especially while the organization was going through a period of expansion. As a result, technology became essential for mapping and integrating processes, as well as for long-term planning.

One of the Oracle platforms GNDI chose to support its data-driven journey was Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). In the past, each area of the company viewed performance results in a certain way and made decisions based on that view. The Oracle EPM solution enabled those different areas of the company to integrate their processes, enabling GNDI to unify its performance information as well as the reporting of accruals and impacts.

With the Oracle Cloud EPM implementation, GNDI was able to optimize its resources and speed up processes and solutions across all business areas. Oracle Cloud EPM also helped with data protection in the cloud, which enabled GNDI to remap its financial and accounting processes. In addition, GNDI appreciated that the product is continuously updated and offers high availability and scalability—not to mention the easy and seamless communication between departments that this implementation made possible.

One of the main improvements brought by Oracle Cloud EPM was in the accounting/financials area. The solution’s Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service module enabled GNDI to reduce budget preparation time by 50% when compared with the process without the tool. Previously, budgeting could take as long as six months, whereas with the Oracle solution it can be released in just three months. The accruals process for all the companies in the group has become fast, accurate, and reliable. In addition, financial leaders and other executives now have access to the same numbers.

“With Oracle’s solution, we’ve gained tremendous agility,” says Fábio Montagna, senior financial planning manager at GNDI. “Before Oracle Cloud EPM, the closing of GNDI books was done using Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel, and reported on the 18th business day. With Oracle EPM, we are currently able to release this same document on the 8th business day.”

Montagna also points out that when the reporting was released on the 18th business day, the company had only 3 subsidiaries, whereas there are now 17 other companies in the group. “In other words, Oracle Cloud EPM also brought in tandem the mandatory integration of internal processes in a shorter time frame, as well as the training of employees for improved analysis with greater granularity," Montagna says. “We had mapped 216 processes that were directly related to the accounting closing. With Oracle EPM, we were able to eliminate 82 of those, which represents a 38% reduction in time.”

Oracle Cloud EPM also brought benefits related to employee training and decision-making, because now employees know where to look for opportunities for improvement. And because the software is cloud-based, even though the transition occurred at the beginning of the pandemic, the entire process was simple and smooth, and there was no need to include additional solutions or access points, because the tool doesn’t require a local or intranet network. Therefore, even the transition to the home office was immediate for both users and the tool administrator.