When Amsterdam-based IMC Trading launched in 1989, it was a true trailblazer of the highly automated global trading industry we know today. Having helped in its early days to accelerate the shift away from manual calculations being made on the trading floor, IMC today trades using data and algorithms, leveraging its execution platform to bring liquidity to financial markets across the world.
Even though it’s a tech pioneer on a global scale, IMC today regards people as “the biggest asset of the company.” These words, spoken by Mengyun Wu, Global Lead Finance Automation, provide insight into the company’s use of Workday as the central platform at the heart of its finance and HR operations.
Enhanced collaboration, insight, and automation.
IMC has reaped the benefits of a unified platform. “Having just one platform not only enhances collaboration between HR and finance: it also creates a more seamless experience across the whole process, delivering real-time insight into our company’s operations,” Mengyun says
“Workday is not only a reliable platform with scalable solutions. It also evolves together with us to offer new features that suit our new business needs,” Mengyun adds. “We’re constantly looking for automation opportunities to help with our journey, and Workday has been a great partner along the way.”
We’re constantly looking for automation opportunities to help with our journey, and Workday has been a great partner along the way.
Global Lead Finance Automation
Taking the complexity out of business modeling.
Mengyun is particularly keen to emphasize the importance to IMC Trading of Workday Adaptive Planning.
“Our company operates in a very fast-changing environment—not only is the market changing, but the way we work as well is also changing fast,” Mengyun says. “This makes the adaptiveness of the business planning process essential for the success of the FP&A (financial planning and analysis) function.”
Fortunately, Mengyun confirms, Workday Adaptive Planning is making a positive impact in this area. “It’s a simple but highly configurable solution that enables us to do very complicated business modeling quickly and easily,” she continues. “This directly improves the efficiency of our financial analysts, enabling them to spend more time on value-added activities with our business owners.”
Eliminating the need for data reconciliation and synchronization.
Workday at IMC is about far more than Adaptive Planning alone, however. “It also offers us many different reporting functionalities that suit the needs of different stakeholders, Mengyun says. “It’s streamlined too—having records to report on the same platform gives us real-time insight without a complicated data infrastructure.”
The simplicity of Adaptive Planning is extremely valuable for a global business like IMC, whose 1,500 employees and 9 offices worldwide support the activities of more than 100 trading venues.
“Having analysts from different regions of the world working on the same platform eliminates the need for data reconciliation and synchronization as part of the process,” Mengyun explains. “All input is consolidated and reflected in real time, no matter what region it originates from, eradicating inefficiency and saving significant time, effort, and cost.”
Having records to report on the same platform gives us real-time insight without a complicated data infrastructure.
Global Lead Finance Automation
A great partnership: straightforward, open, helpful.
Mengyun describes Workday as “a great partner,”adding, “I just like the fact that Workday and IMC are growing together.”
This quality extends beyond the sophistication and range of the company’s technology. It’s also to do with the quality of the relationship between the two organizations.
“We’re a globally operating business, providing liquidity to financial markets across the world,” Mengyun says. “That’s complex, so ideally we want a relationship with our most important partners that is both straightforward and open.
“That’s exactly what we have, and it’s exemplified by events like Workday Elevate,” Mengyun continues. “These are really helpful to us, not only providing a great meet-up place with other Workday customers but also new opportunities to have direct interaction with the Workday product team too. That’s very useful to us, and is an important part of the wider relationship.”