Smooth forecasting thanks to the application of OneStream

From Flight Operations to Cargo: every division within KLM has its own Finance department. That's just as well because this department is the financial conscience of the organisation. Any expenditure the business wants to make is first checked by Finance. Moreover, every month they forecast how KLM will fare at the end of the year - a complicated and, until recently, arduous process. Lots of numbers, little time: Arno and his team knew how to deal with that.

Making lives easier

As product owner, Arno has been working on projects to improve Finance processes for ten years. Sometimes this involves the implementation of digital PowerPoints (CXO), other times an application that makes the life of the business controller easier - such as OneStream. 'As a Finance department, we are of course constantly on top of the figures. Every month, for instance, our business controllers take stock of each department and predict what the bill will be at the end of the year. They used to do that using Excel, but thanks to the arrival of OneStream, that's no longer necessary.'

We present to you: OneStream

'OneStream is a state-of-the-art tool in which we automate all financial data flows. So we get more information in less time. My role? I was product owner. That started four years ago when I set up the requirements: what do we want to achieve? Then I was involved in choosing the tool and helped implement it. A big responsibility, in several phases. In addition, I was the link between all parties involved: from the business to corporate and IT.'

Calculating the kerosene costs

Introducing the OneStream platform was an intensive change process, but immediately valuable, says Arno. 'Take the Fuelling Department, for example: previously, the business controllers would enter in Excel how much kerosene was consumed. With that information, they would calculate the costs for the rest of the year. They would also calculate things at flight level, giving insight into profitability per route - route profitability, we call it.'

A year ahead

'Another example,' Arno continues. 'KLM employs some 33,000 staff across three CLAs. Each division used to have its own model to calculate salaries. When colleagues were given a raise, this used to be communicated by e-mail, after which controllers entered it manually into their own Excel model.OneStream now takes over the entire task while creating uniformity for every business unit, for example the pay scales according to the KLM CLA, but also other salary details we receive from HR. Now, we can see at a glance that everyone had a raise in March.'

'Our financial forecast always runs for a calendar year,' he explains. 'So that starts with a complete forecast from January to December. "Afterwards, we adjust it every month: what is the current occupancy, and how many (FTEs) do we anticipate in the future?"For this, we get data from our HR systems. The model takes into account people who will be retiring in the coming year and this information is automatically adjusted in the forecast.'

Time is money

'The ultimate goal of OneStream is more efficiency in processes and insight into KLM's profitability. As a result, business controllers spend less time on the forecasting process. Insight into the profitability of a specific route is also an important function of the new application. That way, we also support the business at route level. Based on this information, the business determines whether we should fly to New York more often, or whether it would be better to use a different type of aircraft for Shanghai. We can also easily share the OneStream data with other stakeholders within the organisation. So ultimately, every KLM employee - directly or indirectly - enjoys the benefits of this tool.'