For Tryg, one of the largest non-life
insurance companies across the
Nordic region, preparing business
forecasts using its traditional Excel
models was taking too long to
collect and prepare. Now with the
Jedox Enterprise Performance
Management system providing an
automated rolling forecast solution,
the Tryg Finance team has been
able to secure significant reductions
in its forecasting cycle time.
The Organisation
Tryg is one of the largest non-life insurance companies in the Nordic region, with
more than four million customers across Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The
company provides private insurance products – covering car, home, accident,
travel, motorcycle, pet and health. Tryg’s commercial insurance services for
small and medium-sized businesses include vehicles, property, liability, workers’
compensation, travel and health products, while it also offers group life cover to
corporate customers.
The insurer focuses on claims excellence, digital empowerment, product and
service innovation and distribution efficiency, and the result is a fast-moving
business that demands rapid insight into its business performance across its
different business areas and regions.
Traditional forecasting proved time-consuming and
resource-intensive
For a number of years Tryg’s Finance team relied on complex models based on
Microsoft Excel to enable the creation of forecasts for the business. However,
collecting data for these models involved multiple manual processes, and it was
taking Tryg around six weeks of activity to collect and prepare forecasts.
“Using our Excel models was simply taking too much time, making it hard for the
Finance team to produce forecasts each quarter and very difficult to generate
rolling forecasts for the current year as well as three years ahead,” explained
Christina Ljungman, a Financial Partner at Tryg Group.
The Tryg team also found that their models had become increasingly large and
complex over years of use. This, combined with a reliance on key personnel
to drive the process, difficulties in keeping track of forecasts and challenges
in terms of consolidating Excel sheets and models meant that it was always
time-consuming to check and validate data for each quarterly forecast.
Transitioning to a digital forecasting solution with Jedox
Frustrations with this approach meant that Tryg began looking for an Enterprise
Performance Management solution to replace its current spreadsheet-based
system. In Autumn 2016 Tryg selected Jedox and began working with its partner
Qbit to optimise its planning and forecasting processes.
Jedox gives Tryg the flexibility to build financial forecasting models exactly
how they want, ensuring a stronger link between the finance function and the
rest of the business. And because Jedox offers an integrated data foundation
across all its planning and forecasting activity, Tryg also benefits from greater
consistency and transparency of data.
With Jedox in place, all Tryg’s key FP&A forecast data was collected and
consolidated within the seamless Jedox digital platform. This has helped to
improve efficiency across the Finance function and simplify collaboration across
the rest of the Tryg business.
Accelerating the forecasting process
After migrating their Excel data to Jedox, Tryg was able to move quickly to a
much more integrated and dynamic enterprise planning approach. Deploying
Jedox enabled Tryg to evolve from its previous lengthy forecasting cycle to
a situation where it can now produce rolling forecasts and time-independent
forecasts much more quickly. The fact that Jedox optimises the process thanks to
automated data integration and validation, as well as the real-time consolidation
of all reports, frees the Tryg Finance team to focus on more value-added activities.
Using Jedox, all key data and processes are digitised so that the solution drives
communication with the business. All inputs in terms of changes to forecasts and
any associated explanations are all automatically collected and consolidated. So,
instead of managing bulky spreadsheets with many sub-sheets, the Tryg business is
now able to accelerate key processes, such as forecasting, that previously required
the integration of a wide range of data from multiple sources across the business.
Providing Tryg users with a simple and easy-to-use solution
“Because our Jedox solution is cloud-based we can now present our forecasting
data in a standard web browser, making it simpler and quicker for Tryg users
to access the latest information,” explained Christina Ljungman. “This makes
the whole process much easier and more efficient for the Finance team –
accelerating reporting to Group Finance and allowing us to focus more on
analysis rather than data preparation.”
After a rapid deployment, thanks to the flexibility and scalability of the Jedox
Cloud solution, the Tryg Finance team has continued to introduce new
capabilities. “Because we’ve got all our key data – such as cost allocations,
values and business performance – in one place that’s now become business
as usual. However, this also allows us to introduce new ideas and quickly make
changes to our models,” added Christina Ljungman. “We’re currently focused
on introducing a sales forecasting model, while we have also worked with
our partner Qbit this year to gain a greater understanding of the impact of the
Covid-19 pandemic on our business.
Tryg’s Finance team will continue to work on optimising the performance of
its Jedox enterprise performance management solution, and is currently
investigating how AI could support its activities. Looking at Jedox AIssistedTM
Planning is on Tryg’s roadmap, particularly how the technology could support
the forecasting process by picking up on any trends across the business and
recommending changes.
Type of users
Controllers in Tryg’s Finance department and across the business
Benefits/ROI
Faster forecast production
Frees up Finance team time
Browser-based for ease-of-use
Better business collaboration
Future-proof EPM platform
Why Jedox?
Reduced planning cycles
Improved forecast quality
Optimized Finance productivity
Cloud-based solution
Complements existing Excel skills
“Working with Jedox
we have been able to
significantly reduce the
time taken to complete our
forecasting cycle, while at
the same time providing our
executive team with much
more reliable forecasts.”
Thousands of companies have already chosen Jedox!
We offer the opportunity to try Jedox for free – Our consultants are always ready with instructions for using the Jedox software or ready to answer any question you might have.
