Streamlined, collaborative budget prep and reporting enables timely decisions for İLKO Pharmaceuticals

For İLKO, one of the leading players in the pharmaceutical industry, financial planning was less about strategy and more about survival—teams were stuck in spreadsheets, chasing down numbers across departments, and struggling to see the full picture. As a result, stakeholders struggled to communicate and collaborate effectively, had limited flexibility, faced higher risk of errors, lacked real-time visibility, and came under greater regulatory scrutiny.

Budget preparation involved handling massive Excel files, which considerably slowed down formula updates and risked data loss. This generated significant email traffic among different stakeholders, including the Office of Finance, leading to considerable time, effort, and resources being wasted. Using outdated assumptions in market conditions and other dynamic variables and siloed or incomplete data, calculations within the model did not reflect the realities of the business, undermining trust and delays in strategic actions. Because its ability to perform detailed budget analysis was limited, the Finance team couldn’t run multiple budgeting, forecasting, or scenario models to guide decisions, respond quickly, or reduce risk. As a result, the organization invested significant time and effort but ended up with inconsistent results.

İLKO selected Jedox’s solution to digitize and optimize its financial environment—including integrating data from HR, Sales, and SAP ERP resources—and institute sustainable and visible practices to help the organization accelerate business cycles, minimize errors, and perform real-time analysis and simulation scenarios.

Additionally, the organization wanted to develop a culture of awareness in which all stakeholders—from analysts to department heads—were more actively engaged and informed about planning activities. This included understanding risks, opportunities, metrics, and potential issues to encourage critical thinking and a proactive problem-solving mindset.

İLKO integrated Jedox’s FP&A software, providing the organization with optimized planning, reporting, and analysis that’s yielded numerous benefits.

For the Office of Finance, the solution provides streamlined monthly reporting, including the generation of various financial documents such as income statements and balance sheets. İLKO can easily analyze the profitability of its pharmaceutical business, including segmenting it by product and customer. With this solution, departments can rank business areas, products, and customers based on profitability—providing a clear picture of potential areas that may need improvement or other actions.

Outside of Finance, other stakeholders can provide significant support in terms of sales, costs, and expenses. The solution has enabled Finance to work collaboratively and smoothly with these different stakeholders with a level of detail not previously experienced.

As a result of implementation of the Jedox solution, errors are now minimized and planning cycles accelerated. Operational data is consolidated into a single source of truth, enabling all stakeholders from Finance to Operations to the C-suite to see the same unified, consistent dataset with real-time updates. Finance can conduct real-world analysis and scenario simulations, providing timely and accurate reports almost instantly across the enterprise rather than through piecemeal communication and distribution.

Stakeholders—especially C-suite executives—can follow reports that are relevant to their specific department, such as obtaining updated information about their cost centers or tracking purchasing amounts. As a result, they now have a greater awareness of budget situations and scenarios, enabling them to make strategic decisions.

“By aligning sales planning across various channels, İLKO can instantly calculate production plans, material requirements and costs, profitability by customer, material, profit/cost centers, and define distribution keys. The organization can quickly and easily compare projected and actual profits as well as track investments—transforming İLKO into a world-class leader.”

– Özkan Atila, Group Chief Financial Officer

The organization’s FP&A capabilities have significantly increased, including easy access to unit costs and the ability to separate tables by materials and products. Reporting is done more quickly, enabling the stakeholders to discuss and analyze the results in a timelier fashion–meaning management is swiftly informed.

Finance and other stakeholders quickly learned the capabilities of the Jedox solution, allowing them to adapt and utilize it effectively as business conditions change. This is especially important as the organization is growing—producing new products, gaining new customers, and developing opportunities in more countries. Not only will the new Jedox system handle an increasing volume of business, but it will be adaptable to the organization’s future outlook.