E-Commerce Logistics

OUR CLIENT

With multi-billion-euro revenues, the client is a leading e-commerce logistics provider, recognised for its innovative parcel delivery and collection solutions across Europe. The business operates a large and growing international network, working in partnership with major retailers and platforms to make sending and receiving parcels faster and more convenient for customers.

BUSINESS CHALLENGES

Against a backdrop of rapid growth across international markets, scaling the business while controlling costs, maintaining operational efficiency, and ensuring high levels of customer satisfaction, Group Finance needed to provide better visibility of financial results and performance. They aimed to achieve this by improving the efficiency, accuracy, and speed of volume planning and consolidated group management reporting across its international businesses.

Monthly Group Management Reporting

The process of collecting and consolidating the local markets' results was managed using multiple spreadsheet files. The process was time-consuming, mainly due to the inconsistent structure of submissions across markets. Group Finance spent many hours mapping market accounts to the group account structure, and the spreadsheet models were large and unwieldy to manage.

Volume and Revenue Planning

Planning was disconnected, with multiple spreadsheet models used in different markets, and version control was a recurring issue. Each market submitted inbound and outbound volumes that the group had to spend a significant amount of time reconciling between markets. This involved multiple iterations and corrections between markets and Group, and as a result, Group Controlling spent a significant amount of time verifying data and plans to eliminate the risk of errors.

CHOSEN TECHNOLOGY

The client chose the Anaplan AI-infused cloud-based digital platform to provide a central source of data, a standardised structure, and the consistency and transparency needed to improve Financial Planning and Analysis across all markets and Group. Profit& was chosen to support the implementation of Anaplan, and to help the business set a roadmap for Anaplan developments that would leverage the full potential for connected planning.

SOLUTION

Consolidated Group Management Reporting

Standardised reporting structures and a common methodology between markets and Group have been developed in Anaplan. Local market ledger accounts are mapped automatically to the Group P&L. When new accounts are introduced that don’t exist in a market structure, they are added automatically by the system. Markets simply need to map new accounts, select split methodology defined in Anaplan, review, and submit—significantly reducing the time taken to submit results. In addition, local markets now have access to a reliable view of their performance and contribution to group results.

Automated consolidation and elimination processes developed in Anaplan provide seamless intercompany eliminations and currency conversion in less time, and with increased accuracy. Group now has transparency of results, with clear mapping of accounts, real-time variance analysis, as-is, fully segmented, and IFRS 16 views of the P&L.

Volume & Revenue Planning

The volume and revenue planning engine delivered in Anaplan delivers fast,  consistent planning across all markets, with automatic aggregation of the consolidated view. The group planning model reconciles sending and receiving country volumes automatically, and data is available in real time. The invoicing country is responsible for setting the planned volumes and providing this information to the receiving countries.

Local market models are linked to a Group model that provides a view of cost and revenue impact on the P&L. With a complete view of volume, revenue, and cost, the entities have started exploring the application of "what-if" scenarios in the planning process, which the client plans to leverage more extensively as the roadmap for Anaplan progresses. Cost models will be rolled out to all markets in the coming months.

BENEFITS

The client is still on a journey with their Anaplan implementation. However, at this point, the solution has delivered a scalable ecosystem for exchanging and submitting financial results, and volume & revenue planning across the group, unifying and standardising finance processes between the group and local markets. Data integration and automation of processes have delivered significant efficiency gains for both local markets and the Group.

The fully segmented view of the P&L enables multiple, insightful, real-time views to support strategic decisions, such as the performance of domestic versus cross-border packages, different delivery and collection types, and direct versus intercompany deliveries. This enables long-term strategic choices to target the best-performing segments and focus on cost efficiencies at a more specific level.

The Anaplan engine has accelerated volume and revenue planning from 6 weeks to near real-time connected planning. Access to real-time forecasts across markets has prompted discussions and improved collaboration on parcel flows between markets. Clear ownership and accountability for planned volumes now sit with the invoicing country, which is responsible for communicating inbound volumes to receiving markets. As a result, markets act faster to adjust plans to meet demand based on accurate, real-time forecasts.

The board now has better visibility of real-time plans and forecasts, transparency into how results and plans are mapped, and greater confidence in the data. Finance teams spend less time on reconciliations and more time on value-added data analysis, such as market performance analysis.

“By gaining a deeper understanding of how the business works, we have been able to design a process and data model that removes the need to enter the same number from different perspectives by mapping data through different lenses. This eliminates multiple versions of the same number, promoting one version of the truth and ownership. It also reduces the effort spent on reconciliation and refocuses it on value-adding conversations.”   Lee Hewitt, Chief Customer Officer, Profit&

FUTURE

The client will continue to develop a detailed roadmap for connected planning across the markets and business units, including new initiatives:

Expand Connected Planning

The planned expansion of Connected Planning will integrate a recent acquisition into a fully connected ecosystem, enabling real-time insights and decision-making across financial, operational, and workforce planning. This transformation will make planning a continuous, data-driven process rather than a periodic exercise.

By connecting the commercial forecast to operational planning, the client will optimise parcel routing, network capacity, and workforce allocation—ensuring sufficient capacity for future demand while balancing permanent, temporary, and third-party resources during peak periods. Enhanced agility through digital information sharing will improve collaboration across teams, allowing for faster, more informed responses to evolving customer demands and market conditions.

IT Cost Allocation

IT Cost Allocation between markets to fairly distribute IT costs based on actual consumption and support cost control for this key business function.

These enhancements will transform planning from a periodic exercise into a continuous, real-time process, ensuring the business remains at the forefront of logistics innovation and operational efficiency.