With offices in countries ranging from Norway to New Zealand and Brazil to Singapore, Atlas Professionals was becoming increasingly aware in 2019 that it needed a trustworthy and transparent system to improve its global financial accuracy and agility.
According to Finance Director John Ruigrok, “The inadequate legacy systems we had in place were holding us back, hampering our ability to become the truly data-driven organization we aspired to be. In addition, we needed the five financial hubs we have in place across the world to be better able to meet our regional financial needs.”
“A trustworthy and transparent worldwide system.”
Following an in-depth selection process, the company chose Workday. As Ruigrok says, “We were confident that it would help us significantly increase our worldwide financial accuracy and agility. So it has proved.
“Just as important, the organization-wide data that Workday is generating now gives our business leaders immediate access to the data they need for easier and better financial analysis and decision-making. At a time of rapid change and growth, that is an extremely important driver of our continued success.”
It’s now straightforward for our leadership teams to access the information they need to make data-driven and substantiated business decisions.
John Ruigrok, Finance Director
Reduced error rates and improved processes across the business.
Before Workday, Atlas Professionals faced major challenges in managing payroll and finance for thousands of employees and contractors across the world. Ruigrok says, “We knew we had to migrate to the cloud, and we looked for a finance system that could handle the evolving global financial landscape, strengthen our existing markets, and support our M&A activities.”
With Workday, the situation has changed significantly. “In terms of top-line results, we rapidly saw decreased levels of human error, elimination of significant tranches of manual work, and improved invoicing processes overall,” Ruigrok continues. “But this is just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve also been able to radically streamline our closing period. And, addressing one of our primary reasons for change, we’re now using our new ability to drill down into the region-specific nuances of our five financial hubs.
“In short, our financial data has never been so streamlined and easy to access, and we have rapidly seen returns on our investment.”
Improved data access drives better business decisions.
The streamlined access to accurate, live data that Workday enables is proving to be a powerful source of advantage for Atlas Professionals.
According to Ruigrok, “The new ability we have to input information for more accurate data processing is bringing us multiple gains, with increased data consistency underpinning major improvements in financial agility. Just as important, it’s now straightforward for our leadership teams to access the information they need to make data-driven and substantiated business decisions based on reliable reports for business analysis.”
The gains do not end there. Ruigrok continues, “With improved data insights, managers can now develop better career opportunities and identify new ways of upskilling their people. We’ve also recently brought in many new senior staff, so being able to access data and create reports quickly has been essential in bringing them quickly up to speed.”
The positive business impact is being widely felt in the organization. According to Ruigrok, “Having Workday in place is also opening opportunities for new acquisitions and JVs, with the scope to advance into countries that would have previously been significantly more challenging.”
We now have far better opportunities to guide, coach, and support our local finance and business teams.
John Ruigrok, Finance Director
Improved visibility drives faster positive action.
The immediacy of access to live financial information is proving to be a major advantage with a strong positive impact across many aspects of the business.
“The transparency of information has hugely increased as we no longer have to wait for a long period before getting to the numbers,” Ruigrok explains. “We can now see them almost instantly in the system, which is a great advantage across many aspects of management.
“For example, throughout the month we can see how the numbers are developing, enabling us to guide teams. We can see and take action when things are missing, when things are going wrong. Before, we could only see that nearly three weeks after month-end. So we now have far better opportunities to guide, coach, and support our local finance and business teams.”