How a manufacturer of electronics modernized its financial controlling
Success story Toshiba Electronics Europe GmbH
Non-transparent financial data. Opaque processes. Error-prone Excel files. Financial controlling at Toshiba Electronics Europe was anything but efficient and reliable. With LucaNet CPM software, the group turned things around.
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How Toshiba uses LucaNet software
- Monthly reporting
- Deviation analysis
- Budget planning
About the company
Founded in 1875. Over 146,000 staff worldwide. Around 45 billion euros in annual sales. These are the impressive figures behind one of the most famous brands in the technology and electronics industry: Toshiba.
Business Processes
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Industry :
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Production / Industry
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Core Business :
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Electrical engineering and electronics
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Headquarter city :
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Düsseldorf (Germany)
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Employees :
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206,000
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Website :
The challenge
Excel spreadsheets: a real time sink
Toshiba has been using LucaNet since 2003. That makes the technology group one of LucaNet’s first customers. Ulrich Leib, Head of Controlling at Toshiba Electronics Europe, was a fan right from the start. “Before implementing LucaNet, a three-person team needed five to six days for the monthly reporting”, he recalls. The reason for this was the inefficient manual handling of the data and a time-consuming dispatch process using Excel spreadsheets.
But there was an even bigger problem: the lack of transparency and flexibility of the financial data. Toshiba managers were unable to trace back the accounts and postings that caused major deviations. Instead, they had to laboriously hunt through all the accounts. Reliable control and management of the financial data was impossible under the procedure being used. It was a nightmare for any controller.
The solution
90 % greater transparency – meaningful deviation analyses
With LucaNet, this is no longer a problem. Toshiba Electronics now carries out transparent and meaningful deviation analyses. “The most important thing for us is that we can work out the relevant account, cost center, and cost center manager when conducting a deviation analysis”, Ulrich Leib explains. The logging of changes, the ability to add comments on current and planning figures and deviations, and the flexible data layouts also help to provide increased transparency and high-quality data. “With LucaNet, we improved data transparency by 90 %. That’s really unbeatable.”
Budget planning now three times faster
Transparency and efficiency in the planning process also improved significantly, according to Ulrich Leib. “With LucaNet, cost center managers can access information independently and keep tabs on how their budget is progressing, for example.” That saves time: Toshiba Electronics now completes its budget planning three times faster. For the planning of the budgets, for which 40 cost center managers are involved across Europe, the technology group relies on LucaNet’s task management. Tasks remind the cost center managers to enter their data, with the Head of Controlling being able to look at how things are progressing at any time.
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