D’Ieteren Automotive (DIA) has successfully transformed its financial planning and analysis (FP&A) capabilities by implementing Jedox as its Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) platform, moving beyond traditional departmental silos and saving 240 mandays annually.
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 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 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:
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.
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 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:
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.
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:
Nicolas emphasizes that IBP success requires three key components working in harmony:
Over the next 12 months, Nicolas and his team will focus on deepening the integration:
The challenge isn't just technical—it's cultural. "Business users are not used to having so much interconnected data available," Nicolas explains. "We're teaching them to see how their decisions ripple through the entire organization."
Based on his transformation experience, Nicolas offers three key recommendations for controllers embarking on their IBP journey:
Nicolas particularly values the collaboration with NX Partners in designing truly integrated solutions: "Nicolas sets the direction for cross-functional integration, NX translates that vision into solid functional design that connects our diverse business units rather than just serving them individually."
The partnership has enabled D’Ieteren Automotive to build foundations that support genuine collaboration—allowing Phase 1 to go live as planned while creating the architecture for true Integrated Business Planning across their complex automotive ecosystem.
D’Ieteren Automotive is a diversified automotive group operating across distribution, retail, and maintenance services, with additional offerings in financial services and advanced mobility solutions.
Head of Controlling & Consolidation
D'Ieteren Automotive
Nicolas Bleret
Head of Controlling & Consolidation
"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."
