Pieter van Loosbroek 0:00:07.4:

First of all, welcome. Welcome to the Heineken Experience. It is the first time that I could find the location so easily. Normally, I get lost, but today it was pretty easy for me. Thanks for the invite. Being invited in our own building, that's also very special, and I think it's a good reason to stand up here, because we're working together with Anaplan. I think it's also good to share what we're doing, and also share a bit on how we think about the future of finance and technology. Just out of my curiosity, because I can imagine that we have finance people here, and we have technology people here, but if you consider yourself as a finance person, can you please raise your hand? So I think it's almost 50:50, I have the feeling, so I think it's a nice mix of finance and technology, and I think that's exactly the point that I want to make. First of all, I was impressed by the slides before me. The contents, I think you've put the bar now pretty high, so let me try to keep up the pace here, but also the way you're talking about how you work together with clients, and your purpose, and I think that is exactly what we think it's about. It's about decision-making. Are we making the right financial decisions? Are we going to left or to right?

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:01:46.9:

That's also a bit the trend that we see as Heineken. We see two major trends, and that's a difficult word for me always, digitization and automation, so AI, freeing up time for being a better business partner and creating value. That's one. The second is - and that's not technology, that's more people and culture = that, is, 'Okay, what are we going to do with it?' and that's more about going beyond traditional finance. It's about data storytelling, it's about influencing. So all the things that we have, how we are equipped, how are we going to use it, and how do we influence the business. So those two are really key trends that we see in the market currently. A little bit how we are working together with Anaplan. So since 2017 we've worked together, and you see that on the right side. Globally, we did, we are doing projects with Anaplan. We have around 80, 85 operations worldwide, and we started with the USA, and then it continued. Those implementations are very important for us; very important for the business. If you talk with the business, you see also that this is really adding value to the business, so we can really improve our financial decision-making.

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:03:18.1:

Anaplan also supports us in, not only implementing, but also improving. So how can we make sure that we are still doing what is expected from the implementation? That's really important. We're also working together on our future ambition, and what we did I think is great, having those implementations, but we're now also looking at a more global integrated planning solution, and do this more in a global, standardized way. So together with Anaplan, indeed, we're looking at that global planning capability, and also very important, is what I was saying at the beginning, that it needs to create value. So we need to stay close to the business. It's not about the tool, it's not about the analysis of the reports that come out; it's about what are we going to do with it, and that's really nice. I think it's a very successful partnership, so I'm extremely happy to be here and do this together. Yes, so that's a bit of my intro, before I dive into a bit of my personal story, how I look at financial planning and analysis.

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:04:35.4:

Good. Yes, I called it this title, Demystify and innovate FP&A, with technology as one of the enablers. That's also I think how we, how I see it. I'm not downsizing technology, absolutely not, but I think it's one of the enablers, and that's what I want to guide you through in a bit of my personal story, but also on the transformation we're now on here within Heineken. A little bit about myself, I'm a global process lead for FP&A, financial planning and analysis. I worked first at a candy company, Cloetta, and moved to Coca-Cola, the Hellenic Bottler, and then in 2011 I moved to Heineken. Some facts and figures. Are there any Heineken employees here in the room? So please correct me if I'm wrong here, but some key facts and figures, rounded numbers. We're an old company, 1864. Number one in Europe, number two in the world. Three-hundred brands, 190 countries, 170 breweries across four regions. Over more than 30 billion revenue, 240 million hectoliters, and 90,000 employees. So it's a big organization. Of course, there are far bigger organizations, but we are pretty big. My role is a finance role, but outside of the finance governance cycle, so I'm not busy on a monthly basis with reporting, forecasting, planning. No, I'm looking at the process. I'm responsible for the FP&A process. 

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:06:23.3:

So we're in finance, but we are like a linking pin to a lot of functions, so global business control, technology to business, data and technology. So we're really linking those functions together, and to see, okay, how can we make a most optimal process of FP&A. This is not me in my younger days, but I sometimes felt like this. It's what I said, it's also a bit of a personal story here. So I was always in finance areas, business controller, but also revenue management, and I always lacked time in supporting the business in financial decision-making, and I see three main reasons. One is to make a career in finance, it's about the finance governance cycle. It's about your reports, your rolling forecast, your strategic plan, your annual plan. You need to deliver on this. The second is that it's about business partnering, and I think there are two kinds of business partnering. You have the business partner that is growing the business - I think that's the future business partner - but you have also the business partner running the business, and I was more of the running the business. The business was asking me something, 'Can you please deliver this?' and I did it. Although, I thought, this doesn't make sense, but I did it. I want to be a good business partner.

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:07:53.9:

That was also taking a lot of time of my work, and I also had to work with systems which were not really addressing the needs that we needed to do financial decision-making, because very often they were very focused on our transactional process, and of course, I'm also talking about back in the old days, but still, I think the transactional processes, financial processes, are extremely important. If you can't send an invoice, then you can't do business, so I also understand it, but it's sometimes difficult also for an FP&A person to have the right insights, so the right tools to make those decisions. So I spent a lot of time also reworking data, and making sure that I have the analysis, and then there was only maybe five per cent of my time left to support the business in the financial decision-making. So, how to address that challenge? This is also a bit of the last couple of years thinking of, how can we do this? That's also a bit relating to demystifying FP&A, because FP&A can be done in many ways. So what we're now doing is demystifying it in five pillars, so with clear purpose separation, and those pillars, it's that I now invented it, this is about things in the market. 

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:09:19.3:

I'm not sure if you know the concept of Beyond Budgeting, and the purpose separation of your financial process. This is very much triggered by that thinking. So really asking those questions, and make clear that, for example, that forecast is not the same as a plan, because with forecast we want to be unbiased. We want to have the view without any bias, so what we think that will happen, and that's maybe not that great. With planning, or maybe target-setting, it's what we want to happen, and in many organizations you see that those two are being mixed, and that's causing a problem. So it's not only about the pillars; it's also about the enablers. We want to do this as efficient and as effective as possible, and those enablers are built on the high-performance organization enablers. So it's about process, it's about your organization, it's about technology, and we also see it a bit in that order. First, you need to understand, what is it - describe your process - who is doing it; how are you organized; are you using shared server centers? Then, you can think of, okay, how can we automate? How can we use technology to make this happen? You want to track it; are we doing a good job? Sometimes challenging for FP&A. We're not a transactional process. You can't pull data out of the system and then calculate your KPIs, but we're doing this. 

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:10:48.9:

How are you rewarding your employees? What kind of incentives do we have in place? Very important, and it's a bit now hidden right below in the jar, but it's about people and competences, and that's also coming back to the cultural thing. This is extremely important. You can have all those five in place, but if you don't have the right people, then it's not going to fly. And balance it. Constantly balance those pillars and enablers is critical. Also talking about pillars, but then between complexity and insights, and because you can do things very complicated. You can think, hey, I need to allocate to the lowest level of detail, if I look at dimensions by customer, by articles, and you have to be careful with that. You can do that, but I think it's much smarter to think of, okay, what is exactly the sweet spot? Sometimes maybe you're allocating or providing numbers on a very granular level, maybe on a daily basis, which is maybe not needed, so it could be that you're burning your system, and you create complexity which is not giving additional insights. So it's always important to understand what is the balance. What do you need, and what do you need to fulfil that need?

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:12:27.0:

Very often, if I would have done this in the past, I could also tell to my business partners, or to my business counterparts, 'Listen. Well, you can ask this, this report on a daily basis, but it doesn't make sense. It's not adding value.' So you can also explain why they don't need it. What also helps, if you have that clear, and then also making the connect with Anaplan, or any planning or technology solution, you're much faster in defining what your requirements are, and how you should design your technology solution. You're not arguing, 'What do we need?' No, you know what you need, and you're straight there when you want to design and develop something and implement it from a technology perspective. If you do that, you have a much more effective and efficient delivery of your finance governance cycle, which creates time for business partnering.

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:13:25.0:

That brings me to the last bullet. If you do this right, you can indeed create time for finance business partnering, and make FP&A a very, very attractive profession. Then, you also want to track how you're doing this, and you can do this by looking at your process, and do this with indicators. For FP&A, that can also be tricky, because it's not a transactional process. It's also about there are many factors playing a role if you're doing a good job. So, building on that framework, on those pillars and enablers, you can develop a maturity assessment, and you can identify what is the As-Is. Where am I at this moment? From a different perspective, the difference FP&A process areas, but also from the enablers' perspective. So with those two lenses, you can really identify where am I, and where do I want to be. If you see a gap, identify your roadmap and your action plans together. So that gives a bit of a personal story, where I came from and, with your organizations, trying to find out, okay, how can we create more vision and focus of what FP&A is, but also seeing technology as a super-important enabler. Don't get me wrong; this is really important, it's critical, but see it in the full perspective. That's more or less the message that I want to bring to you today. 

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:15:10.8:

Closing off - that's more like a summary - try to standardize your process, as if it is a transactional process. Sometimes it feels a bit uncomfortable, because you can say, 'Well, FP&A, that's business partnering. You can't describe this.' No, you can. You can really describe it. It really helps you, and it opens your eyes, but I think, in addition, it's important to define how to do FP&A, because it is not transactional, so you can do a forecast in 25 different ways, but describe what does it mean for your organization. That's important. Set up your organization, so who's doing what, and design and implement technology, and there, today, this is about it, but super-important, and I think the order is also making sense. Check your process performance, make sure you have the right behaviors, and develop people, which is very important to make this a success. That was not my last slide. These are my last slides. It's a bit of a childish way of an important message, I must say. I'm not sure if you know, there's a little book in the market, it's called Outcomes Over Output. I'm not sure if you know it, but it's recommended. It's 70 pages. I'm not a reader, but this one I could read. It's super-logical, but it also opens my eyes, that we're too much focused on outputs. We need a tool, or we need a report. No, then it starts. 

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:16:53.4:

This is not the job of an FP&A professional. The job of an FP&A professional is to do something with it, and driving real business value. It starts with that. It's not the end. So focus on outcomes over output. That's it. 

 

[Applause]

 

Unknown Speaker 0:17:14.0:

Thank you so much. Pieter, do we have you for questions?

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:17:16.6:

Yes.

 

Unknown Speaker 0:17:17.1:

Are there some questions for Pieter? Feel free to ask away. Yes?

 

André 0:17:27.1:

Hi Pieter. This is André. I think we're colleagues of you, because I work for FP&A as well, so I'm really impressed by your presentation. I'm really impressed how you're focusing on the positive side, how you improved the process. It's part of what I'm doing as well. You talked a lot about how to improve things, but I'm sure you're facing lots of challenges, right? I don't know what these challenges are, if it's organization, technology across any enablers, so if you could maybe highlight the top-three ones which you've come across at Heineken? Thank you.

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:17:57.3:

Yes, of course, I will. So there are some Heineken colleagues here, so I have to be careful that I'm not saying…

 

Unknown Speaker 0:18:02.5:

No names.

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:18:03.3:

This is also a lot about change management. So I see there may be also a big challenge to explain this, and let it land in your organization. It's not easy to put things on paper. I'm saying this now easily to you, as if this is a transactional process, and write it down, but that's hard work. It is hard work to describe how to do FP&A, because you need to sit together with the business. You need to sit together with commerce, supply chain, and understand their decision-making situations, and put it on paper, but you have to invest in that. It takes a lot of time, but once you're there, yes, it gives real benefit. So I think those are the hardest, and indeed, the framework, the model explaining the story, the change management part, because there's a lot of people component in there. I'm not talking about the technology, because I think what I saw today, I'm not saying this is the easiest part, but I think there's so much out there, but if you have those first steps clear, it also makes it much more easier also to work with providers, to say, 'Hey, this is what I need. This is what I want,' and that's what I can say. Thanks for your question.

 

André 0:19:24.7:

Brilliant. Thanks. I think you also mentioned about this evolution of finance role, being like a controller, then a business partner, and then a strategic partner, and looking to grow, so I think this also can only be achieved if you're close to the business, and that's what you've just said.

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:19:39.1:

Yes, and in a lot of cases you don't have the information. You're incomplete, but then, still, it is expected that you support them in decision-making. So don't try to be complete.

 

André 0:19:49.7:

Thank you.

 

Unknown Speaker 0:19:52.9:

One more question?

 

Anna 0:19:56.1:

I'm Anna from [unclear word 0:19:57.8]. I'm the head of FP&A there for one of the regions. You mentioned that you don't work in the day-to-day FP&A, so you don't run the cycle, and you have the luxury to look from the outside on the process. In fact, times we don't have a luxury, like we don't have that separate branch of FP&A process, and if I am occupied, I don't know, eight per cent of my time with the core FP&A, where do you recommend for me to start doing the change management evolution, like the first step towards elevating my FP&A function, if I don't have that separating who can do that for me? 

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:20:35.9:

Yes, so hiring me , I would say, but then we have to negotiate the salary. Well, to be honest, it is a challenge. I do reckon what you're saying. If you're in the cycle and you need to deliver, how to get that time to put this on paper? Yes, it's best, indeed, to make sure that, hey, do you want to do this. Then, it's also with the management to talk about it. Maybe it can be a separate function. I don't know; it could be that - I'm not sure if you have also transactional process ownership. I think you have, because a colleague of mine, he went to work at [unclear word 0:21:17.5], so you could imagine that, next to your transactional process, like R2R, P2P and O2C, you will have an FP&A branch. It could be. The other solution could be, well, on a temporary basis, you put people together to make this happen, and then try to cover this in your daily work. That's what I can advise you.

 

Anna 0:21:43.6:

Thank you.

 

Unknown Speaker 0:21:45.4:

Fantastic. I think there was one more question here. Did I see it? No? We have time for questions. Yes, there's Bram.

 

Bram 0:21:54.9:

Hi. I'm a consultant, so I like your slides, so a lot of models and… One that I liked in particular was about simplicity and complexity. How do you know you went too far to the right? What is your main indicator?

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:22:11.6:

I'm using the slides on a daily basis, to be honest, because I'm continuously in discussion about this. I always pull this slide back, because then I think, oh, no, we're going way too far into the rabbit hole. I think you will never be done. I think it's something that you continuously need to use, and have it as a guiding principle. It's hard work, but it's more like a guiding principle, and sometimes we're not doing it like this, because we're going way too far, but it is okay. If you make sure that you try to stay as close as possible to the sweet spot, and then that's okay. So we're not doing it perfect; it's more a guiding principle. 

 

Bram 0:23:02.4:

Then, a follow-up question. Can I use the slides in the future?

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:23:06.4:

Be my guest.

 

Bram 0:23:07.7:

Thanks.

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:23:08.3:

I also wrote an article, so you can also read the article.

 

Unknown Speaker 0:23:13.6:

Lots of new jobs for you coming out of this.

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:23:15.3:

It is, that Heineken don't know. 

 

Unknown Speaker 0:23:19.2:

It stays in this room.`

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:23:19.9:

Yes.

 

Unknown Speaker 0:23:20.5:

Any further questions? Feel free to ask. If not, feel free to grab Pieter. Thank you so much, Pieter. Fantastic presentation. Very insightful.

 

Pieter van Loosbroek 0:23:31.1:

Thank you.