Southeast Asia’s tech-enabled logistics firm Ninja Van grew so rapidly it found itself struggling with budgeting and financial planning. “As new markets came online, we ended up with 16 departments using Excel and Google Sheets for budgeting,” recalls Singapore Country Head Justina Sim, who was previously regional head of Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A). Despite setting up standardized templates, Sim’s FP&A team noticed recurring gaps and mistakes as well as formula errors. “It made consolidating the group budget and having a clear overview during the planning process very challenging,” says Sim.
Sim started searching for a platform that could deliver high-quality, secure, integrated financial information. Priorities included a customizable budgeting setup, strong access controls, easy-to-use dashboards and reporting tools, and the ability to feed in data from existing systems. “After considering all these factors, we found that Workday was best suited to our needs.”
Trusted, timely, and relevant data.
Sim and the FP&A team have put in place multiple controls to improve data quality, including locking down templates, restricting who can input data, and preventing incorrect data from being saved. “We define user groups for each sheet,” explains Sim, “so country and regional users can only input and review information that is relevant to them.”
Since partnering with Workday Adaptive Planning, we have a single source of truth.
Singapore Country Head
Better commercial understanding.
After becoming Singapore Country Head, Sim was quick to move Singapore’s commercial forecasting onto Workday Adaptive Planning. Sim says having all the data integrated on a single platform has dramatically improved communication between Ninja Van’s commercial and operations units.
Now information is integrated and accessible and supports collaboration, swift decision-making, and our ability to innovate.
Singapore Country Head
Rapid course correction.
With consolidated information at Sim’s fingertips and the ability to compare actuals against targets, Sim can see immediately if performance is not meeting expectations. “I can then work with the team to identify gaps and recommend adjustments so we’re on track to meet our targets,” Sim says.
It’s so important to get timely and accurate financial information to make decisions.
Singapore Country Head
Planning a cold-chain rollout.
When Ninja Van began exploring the idea of offering a cold chain service, Sim and team used scenario planning to help set up the temperature-controlled supply chain. “We quickly used the scenario-testing function to review our targets and support the cold-chain rollout across the region,” Sim explains.
The rollout was a success, with Ninja Cold now offering its customers the ability to specify temperature ranges during transit to maintain product freshness, quality, and safety.