For SOLEVO Group—like many other businesses—having a finance system that meets their needs for agility, flexibility, and scale was incredibly important, so in 2019, they implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance. Paired with interconnected tools such as Microsoft Power Platform, Dynamics 365 gave them a high degree of visibility into the past and present state of their business, but SOLEVO wanted more insights into where the business was headed.
SOLEVO was one of our first customers to implement finance insights, gaining access to more accurate payment predictions and cash flow forecasts, as well as prescriptive tools that would streamline the budgeting process. We recently sat down with Martin Sengel, the CIO of SOLEVO Group, and Vacaba Diaby, SOLEVO’s Global Credit Risk Officer, to learn about their experience working with finance insights and hear how it was transforming their business.
Interview with SOLEVO
What business goals and challenges are you trying to solve for? What are you hoping finance insights can unlock to help achieve this?
“Our Global Risk Officer at SOLEVO wanted to have more insights on Customer Payments, especially to take automatic actions based on the historical analysis for each customer. We hope that finance insights can help us setup a process more proactive and help him get a better overview. We wanted to have a Cashflow forecast directly in Finance Operations in combination with an optimization our budget for each department.”
Why was Microsoft the right solution? What were the key benefits that lead you to choose Microsoft for your business solutions? Were AI and machine learning (ML)-powered capabilities a key differentiator in your vendor selection process?
“Microsoft was the right solution for us to replace our old ERP systems back in 2019. We wanted a global solution that support not only ERP Processes but also a publisher who has a perfect fit and understanding of our business, offering regular updates and evolutions and a range of interconnected tools such as Power Platform, Cloud Azure and all Dynamics 365 applications. Dynagile Consulting was the right partner to help us integrate Dynamics 365 Finance Operations in all our countries and help us right now to leverage the ERP with the Power Platform, Azure Data and now AI and ML including of course finance insights. AI and ML-powered capabilities was indeed a key selection for us when we had taken this selection.”
How will finance insights help you re-imagine the way you operate your ERP business and respond to customers and trends? What is the impact of being able to operate in this new way?
“Finance insights will help us to have intelligence/insights on our data in the system. Top management of SOLEVO have already Power BI Reporting to investigate the past, but what about the future/predictions? Finance insights will provide for us – directly in the ERP – some key elements for our key users to take action. It will save time, and therefore money, with an end-to-end automated solution process. Budgeting processes will be reduced every year now, a more accurate and intelligent company cash flow and when we will receive payments. At the end, it will provide a rich and intelligent financial system that drives decision making and helps us take actions to respond effectively to current and anticipated business challenges.”
What kinds of insights do you hope to gain from the solution, especially with regards to revenue, growth, and planning? How will you be able to make more intelligent decisions and drive operational efficiency through these insights and business automations?
“With COVID-19 challenge, it was very important for us to have a better accuracy on the Customer Payment Predictions and an intelligent Cash Flow forecast. All the way of the three solutions provided by finance insights, this will speed up all our finance processes – facilitating the planning of our teams. Of course, that will lead to drive operational efficiency and therefore to revenue.”
Do you have any details on specific scenarios being enabled or problems that will be solved by the deployment of these technologies?
“For example, thanks to finance insights, one of our use cases will be automating credit collection letters and notifications to our Global Risk Officer with the Customer Payment Prediction based on each customer for each legal entity. Based on the confidence score and on the estimated average number of days late – which is refreshed every day with our latest data from Dynamics 365 Finance and scored for new or updated rows – we will send a notification via Power Automate to the end customer and the regional CFO, if we found this customer as high-risk.”
Learn more
In a short time, finance insights have already had a significant impact on SOLEVO’s business, bringing a layer of intelligence to their operations. Not only has it provided more accurate forecasts—critical for strategic planning—it has saved them time and money by allowing them to automate processes, such as automating credit collection letters and notifications. With a rich and intelligent financial system in place, SOLEVO is now better positioned to make strategic decisions and respond more effectively to current and future business challenges.
To learn more about how finance insights can transform your financial operations, read our finance insights announcement blog, check out our support documentation, or watch our webinar on reshaping the future of financials through AI with Ray Wang from Constellation Research Inc.
