HR cost control and forecasting in a highly dynamic market

A lot of companies have to rely on data of the most diverse origin and quality for their HR concerns when said data is needed for controlling and planning purposes. A lack of data quality and laborious processes are the result. The internationally successful eCommerce company shopware, a large manufacturer of online shopping systems in Germany, has implemented the noventum HR-Analytics software solution for its human resources activities. Nowadays, the HR management of shopware is capable of providing management with management reportings and forecasts in varied scenarios and to precisely calculate and forecast personnel costs with little effort.

In a rapidly growing company with a high share of personnel costs, cost transparency is highly relevant in the here and now as well as tomorrow. Analyses and reports on the status quo and the forecasting in various scenarios are relevant to managing the company. “People Analytics”, the analysis of data from human resource and other business data, is the current challenge for a lot of company. The various departments of the company want to proactively and strategically plan their human resources development and need reliable figures for this. For HR Controlling, the challenge is to provide HR indicators and to enable the intuitive analysis of possible correlations and conspicuous trends. Standard reports based on an isolated data set do not live up to these requirements if one wants to avoid a lot of manual effort and an error-prone locating and compiling of data from different pots. Even when jobs and organisational and/or departmental structures change, recurring analyses should not mean any additional effort.

The responsible parties at the software company shopware were tasked with, in particular, getting a handle on the forecasting of the personnel costs for their HR Controlling department and to obtain a complete picture of their HR costs. Until then, the structure and development of the personnel costs could only be documented in rudimentary reports. The reason for this was, not least, the distribution of the employees’ data across various resources which could only be merged with significant manual effort.

shopware decided on the noventum HR-Analytics solution including noventum HR-Planning powered by CoPlanner. “The interaction of HR data consolidation, HR reporting and HR analysis with the personnel cost planning precisely addressed our challenges”, elaborated Ralf Marpert, Director Finance & HR at shopware AG.

These challenges were:

• combining and consolidating of personnel cost data from various data sources
• automated updating and lean implementation
• enabling of detailed planning, forecasting, and reporting

 

noventum HR-Planning powered by CoPlanner standards is a good fit for these requirements since it can be utilised for a multitude of reporting requirements with functions such as:

• automatic generation of planning suggestions
• planning of personnel arrivals and departures and/or changes
• automatic development of dependent costs based on various parameters

After a tight project duration of a few months, the clients at shopware are very satisfied with the result. “The solution allows for the planning and forecasting in various scenarios and for a comprehensive reporting for the executives with HR responsibilities”, indicates Ralf Marpert. It also turned out to be advantageous that Microsoft Power BI was used as the reporting basis. A solution which had been established at shopware for an extended period already. Thus, in the implementation of the HR-Analytics solution existing know-how could be tapped and it was possible to integrate the solution into existing reporting structures.

One last important plus of noventum HR-Analytics for the shopware company is that the HR data streams can be completely isolated from the rest of the business operations, yet still find their way into the usual reporting landscape for the executives. An independent system of rights and roles allows for a correspondingly careful handling of the confidential data.

 

noventum HR-Analytics with noventum HR-Planning powered by CoPlanner - HR cost planning made simple and flexible

noventum HR-Analytics harmonises HR data in a data mart. For HR cost planning, the of the personnel level data is transferred from the “Single Point of Truth” and starting point into the CoPlanner planning tool. There, changes can be stored easily and flexibly. In the coordination with personnel and/or cost centre decision makers, easily comprehensible simulations are carried out for budget planning and forecasts.

In the noventum HR-Planning powered by CoPlanner standard, the following tools are utilised for the different reporting requirements:

• employee-based and/or position-based HR cost planning
• monthly development based on current HR information
• automatic generation of planning suggestions
• taking into consideration of gradations and collective bargaining agreement changes
• planning of personnel arrivals and departures and/or changes
• individualised planning of salary developments of the employees
• automatic determination of dependent costs based on parameters
• taking into consideration of different responsible parties (HR, cost centre, etc.)
• work-flow support and plausibility checks
• ability to expand by individualised requirements