Algerian mobile operator, budget process review
Situation
A leading Algerian mobile operator needed help in establishing a well-structured financial controlling and analysis processes and tools. This mobile operator had a long and inefficient budgeting process consuming time and resources, and leading to late submissions to the parent company.
Approach
We were in charge of a team comprising 1 manager, 2 Senior Consultants, and 1 Consultant. First of all, our team made a diagnostic of the current budget and forecasting methodology. We assessed the logic of the budget model and identified the analysis required to improve the budget. Next, we reviewed and recommended improvements to the current budgeting process. More particularly, we interviewed key stakeholders, created process maps of the existing situation, and performed a root-cause analysis. We suggested how to improve information flow and sanity checking, departmental cooperation and communication, and skills. Thereafter, we scrutinized the budget/forecast model, and introduced improvements. We assessed the files used by each department and the way they were combined to form the master budget, created value driver trees representing the computations performed, and provided recommendations for overhauling the detailed budget tooling. We also designed and created a high-level budget Excel tool (marketing plan, technical plan, staff & G&A, financial statements in local and group formats). Finally, we highlighted that an Excel-based solution would not be sufficient to achieve the operator’s end vision of a fully automated budget. Thus, we proposed an overall roadmap to implement a planning module in the IT financial system and to collaborate with the Group and other subsidiaries in order to execute and speed up the budgeting revamp.
Results
The high-level tool allowed to perform sensitivity analysis and to choose a budget scenario, reduce the number of bottom-up budget iterations, and to answer Group strategic questions and requests. The root cause analysis and improvement plan showed how to further reduce the resources and elapsed time consumed in the budgeting process, and to eliminate the risk of manual errors.