Radiall Accelerates Qlik Insights and Efficiency With Fiplana

Radiall, a global leader in interconnect solutions, struggled with inefficient manual financial processes and poor integration between tools. Financial leaders wanted faster financial consolidation, reporting, and analysis, so they could respond to market changes with agility. Fiplana from insightsoftware transformed Radiall’s financial planning and analysis (FP&A) workflows to yield seamless integration, enhanced efficiency, and faster decision-making. With Fiplana as their new solution, financial controllers were able to cut their budgeting time and focus more on strategic analysis.

• Shaved two weeks from budgeting time

• Lowered licensing and development costs

• Gained more control and visibility

Operating in complex and fast-paced environments, Radiall serves industries such as aerospace, defense, telecommunications, and industrial markets. To stay ahead of market demands, the company requires precise, agile financial reporting and analysis. Despite Radiall's commitment to data-driven decision-making, finance leaders were limited by their previous tools and workflows. The core challenges included:

• Fragmented tools: Radiall’s prior setup required significant manual effort to manage separate interfaces for data entry (Jedox) and visualization/reporting (Qlik Sense). This disconnect limited usability and extended reporting timelines.

• Limited flexibility: Designing and customizing data entry forms was cumbersome. The rigidity restricted the team’s ability to adapt workflows or integrate additional data sources.

• High costs: Licensing fees and development costs for Radiall’s existing solutions strained budgets.

• Scalability issues: The reliance on cube structures and complex ETL (extract, transform, load) processes made it difficult to modify or expand the system.

• Time inefficiency: Financial controllers and BU teams spent days navigating inefficient workflows, slowing down the company’s ability to create timely budgets and forecasts.

The lack of a seamless, adaptable financial solution was not just frustrating for Radiall’s teams but also detrimental to their ability to stay competitive in a dynamic market. Henri Rufin, Head of Data and Analytics, has played a pivotal role in transforming Radiall’s financial processes and systems. Initially joining as a corporate controller in 2012, Rufin led the replacement of Radiall’s financial consolidation and reporting tools and spearheaded a comprehensive overhaul of the company’s decision-support system. His efforts culminated in the implementation of a unified analytical platform designed to meet the decision-making needs of all business functions, with a focus on business-driven, collaborative development to ensure strong user adoption across the organization. Rufin recognized the need for a more sophisticated solution to automate and centralize financial reporting, ensuring his teams could make data-driven decisions with confidence. He began his search with a singular goal: to transform the team's ability to manage, analyze, and act on financial data. “Our previous process was holding us back, preventing the finance team from being as responsive as we needed to be,” said Rufin. “It was clear that if we wanted to maintain our competitive edge, we had to overcome these limitations.”

To streamline its FP&A processes and improve visibility into financial performance, Radiall turned to Fiplana from insightsoftware. After evaluating several options, Rufin chose Fiplana, a comprehensive FP&A solution built to integrate seamlessly with the Qlik platform. The choice hinged on Fiplana being able to address Radiall’s specific needs:

• Seamless Integration With Qlik: Fiplana enables planning as part of the analytics routine within Qlik, allowing Rufin’s team to build on existing data flows and reports. External data sources are easily incorporated, enriching dashboards with actionable insights.

• Cost Efficiency: Switching to Fiplana significantly reduces licensing and development costs compared to other FP&A solutions.

• Simplified ETL Processes: Fiplana eliminates reliance on rigid database structures, simplifying the development of ETL flows and reducing complexity.

• Rapid Implementation: Unlike traditional tools that take weeks or months to deploy, Fiplana can be implemented and live within just a few hours.

• Flexible Design: Customizable data entry forms and dashboards give Radiall the freedom to tailor workflows to its organizational needs.

With Fiplana, Rufin’s team found a solution capable of automating complex reporting tasks, integrating smoothly with their existing ERP systems, and offering in-depth insights without relying heavily on IT support. The tool's adaptability to Radiall's unique requirements made it an ideal fit for the organization’s goals. “When we saw how Fiplana could eliminate the bottlenecks in our current system, while providing robust insights, we knew it was the right fit,” said Rufin. “The level of control and visibility it offers is unmatched.”

Implementing Fiplana enabled Radiall’s finance team to automate reporting, reduce manual data handling, and produce real-time insights that guide strategic decision-making. The results were transformative: the finance team could now deliver up-to-date forecasts quickly, supporting Radiall’s ability to react to market shifts with agility. Overall, Fiplana has driven improved productivity and transparency, empowering Radiall to better serve its stakeholders and align its operations with organizational objectives.

Fiplana’s seamless integration with Qlik enabled Rufin and his team to bring together their financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting into a unified platform that complemented their existing Qlik environment. The integration allowed for better data flow and ensured that financial information from Qlik was easily accessible, making the planning process faster and more efficient. Fiplana’s flexibility also allowed Rufin to customize planning models and dashboards, tailoring them to meet the unique needs of various departments while maintaining consistency across the organization. “Fiplana’s integration with Qlik was seamless, and we can now tailor our planning processes in a way that Qlik alone couldn’t achieve,” said Rufin. “It’s allowed us to forecast more confidently and deliver actionable insights to every department.” By enhancing the collaborative capabilities of the planning process, Fiplana empowered teams to work together effectively, sharing real-time data directly from Qlik and making more data-driven decisions across the business. This increased agility in planning enabled Radiall to respond quickly to changing market conditions and stay ahead of potential challenges. The team plans to expand Fiplana’s use into other areas, such as sales and operations planning, demand management, and HR budget planning, underscoring its scalability and ongoing value.

Fiplana’s cost-effective solution helped Radiall reduce reliance on multiple systems and tools, creating a more unified environment for both financial planning and analytics. This integration with Qlik provided Rufin with a powerful, cost-efficient way to access comprehensive data insights while avoiding additional licensing or support costs from other platforms. Furthermore, Fiplana’s scalable architecture ensured that Radiall could easily expand its capabilities as business requirements evolved, making it a future-proof solution. “Fiplana’s ability to integrate with Qlik allowed us to streamline our entire process, reducing costs associated with managing separate systems,” said Rufin. “The scalability of Fiplana gives us the flexibility to grow without incurring the high costs of traditional solutions, ensuring long-term sustainability.”

Fiplana’s advanced analytics capabilities, in tandem with Qlik’s robust BI platform, enabled Rufin’s team to unlock even deeper insights from their financial data. Fiplana's real-time data analysis and predictive modeling features enhanced the decision-making process, empowering the team to make more informed and accurate forecasts. While Qlik was already an essential tool for BI utilization, Fiplana’s ability to provide actionable insights directly from Qlik’s data transformed Radiall’s financial operations. “Fiplana’s analytics have taken our use of Qlik data to the next level,” said Rufin. “It’s like having a deeper layer of insights that helps us make smarter, quicker decisions based on real-time data. This level of forecasting accuracy was something we struggled to achieve before.”

By automating many of the manual processes involved in financial reporting, Fiplana enabled Radiall to significantly reduce the time spent on data preparation and reporting tasks. These efficiencies were realized by leveraging Qlik’s powerful data aggregation capabilities in combination with Fiplana’s automation features. With fewer manual steps involved, financial controllers saved two weeks during the budgeting phase, while sales and business unit teams reported significant improvements in the speed and reliability of their budget processes. Tasks that previously took days were completed in hours, freeing up time for strategic analysis. “The time savings from automation have allowed us to focus more on analysis, thanks to Fiplana’s seamless integration with Qlik,” said Rufin. “We’re no longer bogged down by data entry and can now drive more value from the data we already have.”

Radiall’s use of Fiplana alongside Qlik has enabled the finance team to enhance their planning, budgeting, and forecasting capabilities while maintaining the strengths of their existing Qlik environment. By automating manual processes, providing real-time insights, and enabling more flexible, data-driven decision-making, Fiplana has empowered Radiall to become more strategic and efficient. With the ability to scale as needed and integrate seamlessly with Qlik, Radiall is poised to meet future challenges and capitalize on new opportunities with greater agility and confidence. The benefits Radiall has realized—from significant time savings to enhanced data quality and agility in planning—demonstrate the power of pairing Fiplana with Qlik to drive financial excellence. Looking ahead, Radiall is poised to expand its use of Fiplana, leveraging its flexibility and scalability to support additional areas of the business. Fiplana’s powerful features—automation, real-time data, intuitive dashboards, and seamless integration—make it the ideal solution for businesses seeking to optimize financial operations and drive greater organizational alignment. Discover how Fiplana can transform your financial planning and analysis processes. Book a demo today and see firsthand how Fiplana can help your team unlock its full potential.