Single source of truth drives integrated business planning forward at D’Ieteren Automotive

When Nicolas Bleret joined D’Ieteren Automotive as Head of Controlling & Consolidation, he brought extensive experience from a decade at Spadel, where he had worked with advanced financial systems in an international environment. However, he quickly discovered that D’Ieteren Automotive’s diverse business portfolio was operating in departmental silos, with the group Finance team dependent on Excel for financial planning and analysis.

“The system setup made it time-consuming to prepare forecasting and budgeting for the group,” explains Nicolas. “Analysis capabilities were limited, without any drill-down functionality.”

The complexity stemmed from D’Ieteren Automotive’s interconnected yet fragmented operations—spanning import to distribution, retail, maintenance, second-hand sales, financial services, and advanced mobility solutions like car sharing. With 5-6 different enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems serving various business needs, each department was essentially planning in isolation, despite their interdependencies. This siloed approach made consolidation particularly challenging across the mix of B2B and B2C business models.

In 2023, D’Ieteren Automotive decided to select an enterprise performance management (EPM) platform to facilitate integrated business planning—a comprehensive strategic management process that would align their strategic, operational, and financial planning across all departments. The aim was to establish a unified framework that connects various entities to collaborate effectively and stay aligned with key business objectives.

The selection process was comprehensive, with all major vendors showcasing their solutions. Key selection criteria included:

• System fit and integration capabilities across multiple business functions
• Platform flexibility to support diverse departmental needs
• Integration with Office 365 to maintain user familiarity
• Ability to break down silos and enable cross-functional collaboration

After assessing technical capabilities and customer feedback, Jedox was chosen for its flexibility and seamless integration with Office 365, especially its ability to connect various business functions while keeping the Excel interface familiar to users.

For implementation, D’Ieteren Automotive selected NX Partners as its system integrator, based on recommendations from both Jedox and existing clients. The fact that NX Partners had previously collaborated with D’Ieteren Automotive and understood their complex, interconnected business challenges was a major advantage.

Phase 1: Group reporting model – Creating the foundation

The migration of the group reporting model to Jedox marked a major breakthrough in removing departmental barriers. “This was a big step forward, as it allowed us to automate much of the process of creating financial plans and budgets, with granularity levels that weren’t possible in Excel,” notes Nicolas.

More importantly, it created a single source of truth that all departments could access and contribute to.

The results were immediate:

• High level of planning harmonization across business units
• Improved consolidation processes that reflected true cross-functional dependencies
• Material time savings that freed up resources for strategic analysis
• Enhanced quality of inputs through cross-departmental validation
• Augmented analysis features with improved granularity and drill-down options

Phase 2: Business unit integration – Connecting the ecosystem

The second phase focused on individual business units, including retail, aftersales, IT, and HR, but with an important difference—each implementation was designed to connect with others instead of functioning separately.

The implementation has delivered impressive results across D’Ieteren Automotive’s 50-60 Jedox users, but the benefits extend far beyond simple efficiency gains:

Direct time savings:

• Central team savings: 3-4 days per month (12-16 mandays monthly)
• Quarterly forecast preparation: Additional 90-120 mandays saved across business units
• Total recurring savings: Over 240 mandays annually

“These savings free up time to invest more in analysis and enhancing the quality of planning cycles, but more importantly, we have established a solid foundation that will allow us, in the near future, to consider the full impact across our entire business ecosystem,” emphasizes Nicolas.

“The challenge isn’t just technical—it’s cultural. Business users are not used to having so much interconnected data available. We’re teaching them to see how their decisions ripple through the entire organization.”

Nicolas Bleret

Head of Controlling & Consolidation

Driving business impact: Stepping stones to unified decision-making across functions

Since the Jedox implementation, the platform has transformed how different departments collaborate. Teams have moved away from working in isolation; instead, they now operate with shared data sources and aligned objectives. Definitions have been harmonized, and data granularity has been enhanced across the organization—leading to stronger analysis and supporting better-informed decision-making.

D’Ieteren Automotive’s journey toward integrated business planning (IBP) represents a fundamental shift from traditional departmental planning to a comprehensive strategic management process. Rather than having Sales, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, Human Resources, and IT operating independently, they’re creating a unified framework.

It will take another year or two, but ultimately, the goal is:

• Enhanced product and customer profitability analysis: With Jedox’s integrated profitability analysis capabilities, D’Ieteren aims to assess the true lifetime profitability of each product and service across its diverse portfolio.
• Strategic investment decision-making for future mobility: As D’Ieteren Automotive pursues investments in emerging mobility solutions with uncertain market returns, the ambition is to leverage Jedox’s scenario planning capabilities to model multiple possible market developments and assess potential ROI under varying adoption rates. This will enable more informed, data-driven strategic decisions as new mobility opportunities evolve.
• Optimized cross-business resource allocation: The ambition is to leverage the integrated planning framework to enable dynamic resource allocation across business units, guided by real-time profitability insights, to maximize returns across their interconnected business ecosystem.

Furthermore, Nicolas emphasizes that IBP success requires three key components working in harmony:

1. System capabilities: Jedox providing the technical foundation
2. Mature processes: Redesigned workflows that connect rather than separate functions
3. Team maturity: Cultural shift toward collaborative decision-making