Malmaison & Hotel du vin speed consolidation for 26 hotels

Before Jedox, Malmaison undertook financial planning in a traditional way. Budgeting, forecasting, and any financial modeling were carried out as a spreadsheet-based activity. Each of Malmaison’s 26 boutique hotels operates autonomously from a finance perspective, which meant that the team needed to rely on email to distribute and collect files for consolidation.

This system made it difficult to track completion status across sites. Just identifying where each site was in the cycle was challenging enough. Has everyone submitted their final version? If not, who still needs to submit? Monitoring version changes was another laborious hurdle. The team was constantly trying to keep track of changes and make sure there were no errors in the final report. At the end of it all, the reports and information produced were static. Once prepared, they were filed away, and it proved difficult to reuse the data gained in their creation for any other purpose. This led to considerable duplication of effort to generate information similar to that already held. The demands of the business, along with the state of the economy in general, were changing, and Malmaison needed to find a way to adapt to keep up with the requests from all corners of the business for timely and accurate information. It became apparent that a change was needed.

After choosing Jedox, Malmaison’s initial focus was its daily reporting, which was labor-intensive in data collection and, being daily, only useful if delivered in a timely fashion. The process has now been completely automated, allowing Malmaison to deliver the previous day’s revenue data by 6:30 am without any additional work. Another benefit of introducing Jedox was giving users more control over what they saw in the report. This dynamic approach meant that Malmaison could design a report that allowed the user a high-level view initially but with the opportunity to drill down into the detail in a number of different variables, by site, revenue stream, or day. Previously, a flat file was produced that had to contain every piece of information on it that may have been of interest. The dynamic approach also allowed Malmaison to be far more creative with the way information was presented, which was impossible under the legacy systems.

Spreadsheets no longer need to be distributed to each of Malmaison’s 26 sites for completion. The information can be populated directly into Jedox through custom-designed forms published through an internet browser that, while built on a spreadsheet base, allow for much better control over the user input. Since everything populates into one central database, the team doesn’t have to worry about collecting forms from all 26 sites individually. As long as the user is inside the organization’s network, they can access the system via the browser. Because of this new accessibility, tracking completion status is more manageable, with routines available that will allow users to plot where they are on a path. Process improvements have had a direct influence on the bottom line and have made it easier for the team to access critical information in a timely and cost-effective manner.

We wanted to perform a three-dimensional review of each property that focuses not only on the financial performance of that hotel but encompasses all aspects of the business: employees, customers, suppliers, quality control.

Gary Hall, Finance Director at Malmaison & Hotel du Vin