How a Manufacturing Group Rebuilt Its Finance Engine and Freed Cash for Growth

A large heavy manufacturing group in Central Europe was facing eroding margins, rising energy prices, and increasingly complex reporting demands from investors. The finance function was overloaded with manual work, and management decisions were often based on delayed or incomplete data. The company was running more than 40 different reporting templates, many of them in spreadsheets, with inconsistent definitions of margin and cost categories. This fragmentation made it impossible to compare performance between plants in a reliable way.

Controllers spent up to 60% of their time reconciling data between systems, while plant managers complained that they received reports too late to act. Budgeting cycles lasted four months and required hundreds of manual adjustments. The treasury team had limited visibility into inventory and receivables, which led to unnecessary short-term borrowing. The board decided that a comprehensive financial transformation and cost optimization initiative was needed to restore control and unlock cash.

Radner's team designed and executed a comprehensive financial transformation across the entire industrial group, covering group finance, plant controlling, procurement finance, and working capital management.

The transformation included:
- Structured diagnostic across five plants and group headquarters to map information flows
- Standardization of core definitions and processes across all locations
- Redesign of the monthly closing process, eliminating redundant reconciliations
- Implementation of a single group chart of accounts and unified reporting platform
- Introduction of standardized margin bridge and performance dashboards
- Migration to rolling forecast model with driver-based planning
- Working capital optimization through order-to-cash and procure-to-pay process improvements
- Technology enablement with workflow tools, automated reconciliations, and process automation
- Change management and training programs for controllers and finance managers
- Implementation of continuous improvement mechanisms within the finance function

The financial transformation delivered exceptional results within the first year:

- EBITDA margin improved by 2.3 percentage points through cost savings and better pricing decisions
- Monthly closing time reduced by 5 days within three months
- Working capital reduction released enough cash to fund critical plant modernization without additional borrowing
- Days sales outstanding decreased by 7 days and inventory days on hand fell by 15%
- Budgeting cycle reduced from 4 months to 6 weeks
- Forecast accuracy improved significantly, enabling more precise capacity planning
- Controllers' time spent on data reconciliation reduced from 60% to less than 20%
- Board gained confidence in financial forecasts, supporting more ambitious strategic planning
- Investors responded positively to improved transparency, reflected in higher valuation multiple