Flix SE, the global travel-tech leader behind the iconic green FlixBus and FlixTrain brands, operates in a world of constant motion. With a presence in 44 countries and a network spanning 8,000 destinations, the scale of their coordination is immense.
Before adopting Adaptive from Workday, the company’s internal financial planning was struggling to keep pace with its rapid global expansion.
The “Excel planning wasteland.”
Prior to Workday, Flix relied on a fragmented system of over 70 Excel files. This manual approach was prone to errors and made real-time collaboration nearly impossible. Fabian Becker, Head of Controlling Intelligence at Flix, describes the previous state as an “Excel planning wasteland.”
The need for a robust, centralized tool for financial planning became undeniable as the company scaled its operations across Europe, North America, and beyond.
Planning is global cooperation and collaboration between many different people so that we can achieve our business goals.
Head of Controlling Intelligence
Accelerating efficiency through driver-based models.
The transition to Adaptive from Workday was not just about moving data; it was about reinventing how Flix thinks about its business. By introducing driver-based models, the team moved away from manual inputs and toward a dynamic system where changes in one area—like revenue—automatically update related costs.
With the new system, Flix achieved a much higher degree of automation. “Immediately when planners entered their planning inputs, we could calculate the P&L and cash flows,” says Becker. This shift allowed the team to move their forecasting process from Excel to a more accurate model that overlays actuals with forecasts, providing a clearer outlook after each quarter.
A unified vision for a global workforce.
Managing sensitive data across 25 global offices requires precision. Workday provided Flix with the ability to implement flexible, user-tailored access rights, ensuring that sensitive information like salaries remains restricted while allowing cross-functional teams to collaborate effectively.
What supports that data integrity is also the connection of Adaptive from Workday with Workday Human Capital Management. “We’re also using Workday for our people processes and data. From there we can better sync FTE data from Workday to Adaptive,” Becker explains.
One of the proudest achievements for Flix is the creation of a dedicated "Controlling Intelligence" team. By building in-house expertise, they no longer rely on external consultants to adjust their planning modules. “We have basically in-house developers that can maintain the whole system which gives us a lot of flexibility and adaptability,” Becker explains.
Adaptive from Workday helped us automate multiple planning steps and we definitely introduced a lot of efficiencies in the planning process, allowing more time for analysis.
Head of Controlling Intelligence
Looking ahead: The 4.0 evolution.
Flix is not slowing down. The team is currently working on “Adaptive 4.0,” a complete remodeling of their planning instance to support a long-term horizon of five to 10 years. This next phase aims to eliminate calculation overhead and further speed up performance as the network continues to grow.
For those still stuck in Excel, Becker suggests challenging existing processes before making the leap. “I think it’s very important to challenge the existing processes first, because then you can really make the best out of the tool,” he says.