Mellanskog have developed a user-friendly system with navigable dashboards for all their users within the organization. Mercur Business Control is used for budgeting, forecasting, reporting, contract management and analysis. Mercur Business Control enabled Mellanskog to reduce manual and laborious work and streamline their processes.
Mellanskog is a forest owners' association with a geographical area of operation in Gotland to Härjedalen in the north part of Sweden. They are a full-service operation providing wood harvest, forestry management and financial services. Mellanskog is cooperation owned by 27 000 members in over 40 countries and their turnover is £4.2 billion.
Like many established organizations we were using outdated solutions for planning and monitoring, Björn Fredriksson, Controller at Mellanskog explains. Forestry is very modern in many ways but not when it comes to the finance function! Money for digitalization had been allocated to forestry but not accounting, finance and corporate performance management. We used old systems and Excel for analysis, budgeting, forecasting and profit & loss. We were told not to set up new account codes because of a fear of destroying the Excel sheet!
We used inefficient systems that didn’t support us with the information we needed, Björn continues. Another disadvantage was that the information and knowledge was tied to a specific person which made us very vulnerable if they left the organization. The manual work in Excel sheets didn’t help either as they became larger and more time-consuming. More time was spent on troubleshooting Excel documents instead of analyzing budgets and forecasts.
It became difficult to find time for a new and faster process whilst we were monitoring and planning in the organization. We never had time to analyze our data. Our time was spent on putting the numbers together through the combination of different sources of information instead of understanding how our data could benefit the organization.
We agreed that we needed to do something about our laborious processes and in spring of 2018 it became the year we decided to replace our current solution with an ERP system hoping to solve our problems. We started visiting different organizations and realized that it wasn’t an ERP system we were looking for. Instead, we needed a system that integrates with our many different sources of information to better streamline our processes.
After a thorough procurement process in summer 2019, we selected Mercur. We called the project BiBop, short for Business Intelligence, Budgeting and Forecasting.
We were looking to improve our financial analysis centrally so as to understand the business better. It was important that the users in the organization could find answers when they saw any anomalies. We were also looking to improve our budget and forecast structure. Another goal was to have ‘one single version of the truth ‘to have a fully informed picture of the organization.
We decided to conduct a POC (proof of concept) and Mercur understood our challenges and used our data to show us how we could streamline our processes. Mercur had the best solutions, and they came back to us with the results very fast. Another advantage with Mercur Business Control is that it’s a standard application with a large customer base and professional consultants. The overall cost of implementing Mercur Business Control was reasonable and it is an established cloud solution, Björn Fredriksson at Mellanskog explains
Thanks to Mercur we now have a more detailed budget allowing us to monitor the numbers smoothly.
- Björn Fredriksson, Controller
We understood the problem and knew exactly what kind of solution we were looking for
It was very valuable for us to visit organizations and be inspired by their solutions
To better coordinate the project, we decided to take on an external project-leader
It was all about timing – we were ready to move from manual and laborious processes
We decided to reuse valuable work from old projects
We involved the organization in the project, which made it easier to make decisions
We use Mercur Business Control for budgeting, forecasting, monthly reporting, contract management and analysis. The users of Mercur are managers and budget owners within the organization. Mercur is very user-friendly and it’s easy to navigate with role-based start pages. In other words, we now have one single version of the truth, and we can all access our data.
Corporate performance management – covering production and contact with members
Market – as in customers and products
Overhead – as in profit-and-loss balance sheet
If needed you can drill and investigate to find more relevant data in our focus areas, on both product and customer level. It was important for us to keep our data on a geographical level with charts, figures, and maps.
It’s easier to analyze in pictures rather than numbers
Mercur users at Mellanskog
User-friendly solution built for users to analyze data
Streamlined processes within the finance function
The solution is both flexible and adaptable for the future
A robust and safe platform
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Mercur Solutions LimitedOcean House, The Ring, Bracknell RG12 1AX, United Kingdom+44 (0) 1344 388 025info@mercur.com
Mercur Solutions ABVretenvägen 13, SE-171 54 Solna+46 (0)-459 69 00info@mercur.com
Stortorget 3, SE-211 22 Malmö
Västra Hamngatan 21, SE-411 17 Göteborg
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A Swedish company with 50 years of experience, delivering solutions for performance management and business intelligence.