From "Hero Mode" Chaos
to a Self-Driving Machine.
The Challenge
We were a Global Brand running on Local Dialects.
At the peak of the laptop market, Sony VAIO Europe was a €1B+ powerhouse, but our financial nervous system was fractured. We operated across a complex matrix: Sales Companies in every major European country (France, Germany, UK, etc.), manufacturing and HQ in Japan and China, and a pan-European strategy office in Brussels.
The operational friction was immense. Each Sales Company had its own local incentives, accounting nuances, and ERP behaviors. Getting a "single source of truth" on profitability wasn't just a data problem; it was a diplomatic one. We had to reconcile European market realities with Asian manufacturing costs in a volatile currency environment.
We lacked a standardized operational cadence. Data arrived in different formats at different times. We were trying to steer a massive ship, but the engine room (Asia) and the bridge (Europe) were speaking different languages. We needed to build a unified financial operation that could ingest global chaos and output strategic clarity.
Tangent There is no such thing as "raw data" in a multinational corporation. By the time a sales figure reaches HQ, it has been massaged by a local Sales Director trying to hit a bonus, filtered through a local controller worried about compliance, and translated into a reporting currency. The job of Global Finance Operations isn't just math; it's interrogation. You have to standardize the definitions before you can standardize the data.
We needed to establish a rigorous, pan-European control tower. This meant enforcing standardization across the Sales Companies, building the "shadow systems" to handle complex allocations before IT could catch up, and serving as the operational link between local Presidents and Global Strategy.
The Operating System
I managed the financial "Control Tower" for Europe. We moved from disparate local reporting to a synchronized, automated, and standardized European operation that aligned Tokyo, Beijing, and Brussels.
Global Data Standardization
We enforced a unified financial language across all European Sales Companies and Asian supply chains. This required coordinating data collection protocols to ensure "Gross Margin" meant the same thing in Paris as it did in Tokyo.
The "Shadow" ERP Architecture
While waiting for corporate IT, we built the operational bridge using VBA and advanced modeling. We stitched together manufacturing costs (China/Japan) with sales data (Europe) to create the first true Profitability View.
Sales Company Liaison & Governance
We acted as the operational backbone for Country Presidents. By traveling to local entities and standardizing their budget/forecast processes, we ensured local vendor negotiations were backed by global financial rigor.
Operationalizing the Turnaround
Strategy is theoretical; Operations is practical. We built the daily and weekly monitoring mechanisms that tracked the "Locomotive Strategy" in real-time, forcing accountability across the P&L.
Tech Stack
- SAP R/3 (Financial Backbone)
- VBA / Advanced Excel (The "Shadow" Integration Layer)
- Hyperion / SAP BW (Consolidation Tools)
- Global Supply Chain Data Feeds (Asia-to-Europe Costing)
The Engine Room (Tech Stack)
(We killed Slack to reduce app switching. Fewer tools = faster onboarding.)
You don't need to hire 50 people to get these results.
You just need the operating system. We can install the core of this machinery in your business in 30 days.
Let's Discuss Your Operations →