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From Data Rails, this is FPNA Today.
Welcome to FPNA Today.
I'm your host, Glenn Hopper.
Today on the show, I'm joined by Sebastien Prevel, a senior director at the Coca-Cola Company.
Sebastien's career spans pharma in China, commercial finance marketing, investment management across 11 countries and the CFO seat for Coca-Cola France.
It's been a winding road, and that's what makes this conversation interesting.
After running Country Finance, he moved into designing Coca-Cola's global FPA shared services from scratch.
He pioneered a data science powered forecasting solution and, most recently, led a marketing finance transformation, integrating S4 with tools like Adobe and Adaptive Planning.
That project just wrapped and he's got some candid takes on the gap between what technology promises and what it actually delivers at scale.
We're going to cover business partnering, shared services, AI hype versus reality and some sharp career advice for anyone wondering whether CFO is really the only destination worth chasing.
Sebastian, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Glenn.
Good day.
Happy to be here with you.
Yeah, likewise.
I love the road that your career has taken and I feel like it starts in a pretty unique place for a finance professional doing controllership work for a pharma company in China in the late 90s.
You set up ERP systems and finance procedures from scratch.
Tell us about the experience in China, what it was like and how did it shape the way you think about finance, even today?
Yeah, so China, it's already almost 30 years ago.
So it's a long time ago.
And things have changed quite a lot in China.
But if you go back 30 years ago, that's when China economic growth was really high, starting and booming.
And it was my first professional experience.
So I joined this French pharma company and it just opened a few months before I moved to Beijing and To me that was really a tremendous experience and really a foundation for the rest of my career, because I started to grow personally and professionally with this experience.
And yeah, I mean just taking your example.
When I arrived, I remember it was December and the accounting was still being done in rice paper and then being translated and moved into Excel.
At that time, there was no internet connection between Europe and China.
So meaning that for every closing, running estimate, business plan, basically to do all of this in Excel file to save it on a floppy disk.
I don't know if you remember what it was.
There are a lot of listeners who don't even know what it is.
But I had to send it using DHL send to the headquarters and then it would be entered and filled into the local SAP system.
So it looks like a bit like a prehistory of finance, but that's where we started.
And in four years, I mean, the business in China grew.
The team grew.
We moved from rice paper to a small ERP, which was SAP compatible at that time.
But also I did much more than fines because I was.
I mean, the office was growing and then I had to do more things than just finance and controlling.
So I started to work on payroll, setting up the sales system.
I even work in marketing for the launch of one of our new products and so on.
So it's basically teach me how to really adapt to a very different environment, so culturally, but also to learn how to do things by myself.
Because I could have some support from the head office or the regional office, which was in Singapore.
But yeah, it was not instant like it would be today with having a call through Teams or Zoom or whatever, or to have a quick chat through Teams and so on.
So, I mean, the communication was much slower in pace.
And the technology was not so advanced.
And then you had to partner a lot to understand exactly what was the need of the operations, people and how to adapt and also how to teach them.
Okay, what is finance, what are the key KPIs that we're following, and so on.
Because I was working with a lot of people coming from basically the i mean hospitals, nurses and so on would move to this foreign company, so they were also learning on a very different job and they had little exposure fines because i mean, as you could imagine,
I mean finance was not really a top priority in terms of education in China in the late 80s, beginning of the 90s.
So very different from today.
Yeah.
And what an amazing opportunity, though.
One.
You know obviously the limitations of the technology and sort of the pace that things move.
But Doing the different roles in that first position I would think it sort of builds an inherent business partnering mindset, because you're not just in that strict FPA lane, your controllership in that case, that you're working the other groups doing the other things and it sort of gives you the bigger, a broader picture of what's going on in the business.
Yeah, and you have to, because I mean, if I only did what I was meant to do at the beginning, I don't think I would have stayed there for almost four years.
I don't think I would have grown professionally the way I've grown.
And in the meantime also to adapt and learn the language and so on, because not all the people were speaking French or English in the office.
Right, right.
And then so you go from there and that just sets you up for, you joined Coca-Cola in 2001.
First several years there doing commercial finance, revenue growth management, new product launches.
And I guess you were doing also working with key customers, McDonald's, Air France back then.
Yeah, I worked key customers.
Well, I was going to say for customers who haven't worked in FMCG what does commercial finance look like day to day in a company like Coke?
So again, commercial finance, it's a lot about business partnering.
So you're the finance business partner of the marketing team or the commercial team and you're working on projects.
So it's less about doing the closing business plan rolling estimate, but it's really focusing on projects.
So how you can help the to drive value to the company and ensuring that you are shaping the commercial proposal, how you're shaping your innovation development in a way that you will ensure there's going to be a growth of the top line and also bottom line of the company.
Again, it's going beyond figures.
So understanding the whole value chain and the whole supply chain when you're thinking about new product development.
So where are you going to source the product from?
What will be the structure of the cost?
What will be the structure of the pricing?
How does it compare to the competitors that it's providing this financial insight to your partners but it's yeah i mean you're really embedded in the team and you're working with the marketing team with the r d technical team supply chain depending on the on the project so it's again it goes a bit beyond finance but it's ensuring that you got the right financial lens uh in whatever is being uh developed Yeah.
And again, I think the theme here is getting that broader picture so that you're not just in one lane.
And I would think that that kind of experience really puts you in good shape for when you became the country CFO first for France down the road,
And there you were partnering with commercial teams to win customer tenders.
And I think we talked before the show adding something like 150 million in system revenues over five years in that role.
And you drove the Tropico acquisition all the way, from identifying the target all the way through integration.
And I'm thinking of all this kind of work and wondering what does effective business partnering look like when you're that close to the commercial engine?
Yeah.
So, when you're thinking so, just going back to the commercial finance role, because also you need to partner with the FPA team, which sometimes are much more focused on how you're going to deliver the numbers, how it's going to be translated into systems so that you can do the appropriate forecast of your revenue, of the bottom line and so on.
And you need also to retranslate whatever the strategy is, whatever you're building, in a way that is meaningful for the FPA team.
Then when you're thinking about partnering with the operations.
So I mean, you're basically partnering to win in the market and you need to be flexible in order to ensure that you can win in the market.
So, either by launching your product, reviewing some of your rgm strategies or also being part of customer tenders, renewal and so on.
But what is important is that you need to be flexible to win, but you don't want to win at all cost, because when you work with commercial people, they will explain to you how their customer or their prospect and so on is going.
It's super important and it could be okay to lose money.
It could be okay to overinvest and so on.
But you need to put this financial lens and say, okay, does it make sense?
Can we make a proposal which is better for your bottom line and that way you can still win in the market?
And sometimes you also need to explain to your partners that it's okay to stop a product development or it's okay to lose pretender or to lose a customer, because i mean if your competition uh is putting too much pressure on the, i mean it's putting too much money, and so when you cannot compete and you're going to destroy value, sometimes it's better to let go than to pursue.
Not very easy to convince your standard marketing and commercial folks about.
Okay, let it go.
But it's also part of the process.
So you need to partner with the team and show that you build some trust with them, but also you need to educate them about okay, what is a good financial deal for the company?
And yes, I mean, everyone wants to grow business.
Everyone wants to launch new products.
Everyone wants to get new customers, but you need to ensure it makes sense financially.
And I think for customer tenders that's particularly true because I mean you're working on a lot of pressure, because competition is quite fierce.
And yeah, you can guess who are the competitors of Coca-Cola globally and in some of the major countries.
And they could be quite aggressive because we are the leader in the market.
And I would say sometimes they could try to do things that, as the leader, it's maybe not the right things to do and to follow.
But also when you're thinking about the marketing development of new products.
I mean, not all the products that you're going to launch are going to be successful.
So you need to ensure that also, you are putting in place the right RGM for your product and also that you've got a plan where okay, if it doesn't go as expected, that in the end you're not going to lose too much money, and something which is not always very easy, because when you work on the plan, you already always got a very nice spreadsheet that shows okay, the product is going to be number one in the market in 10 years and generate x millions.
But if i would look at all the product development spreadsheet that i have done over what i was doing this and what was the reality, maybe works out the way we plan, or better, maybe in 20 of the case and 80 of the case, some of those products either being less successful than expected or just are scrapped along the way.
And that's got to be particularly interesting in FMCG because the number of products and just sort of the speed of the market out there
And I think having that discipline to say when the baby's ugly or where this isn't working, there's probably, I would imagine, on the marketing side there are some big proponents that say just give it a little more time.
We need the traction.
But having that financial discipline, and also maybe sometimes does it go the other way, where it's not hitting numbers yet but there's compelling reasons to keep it around, or?
Yeah.
And there's a lot of factors that could influence the success or not the success of the product.
I mean sometimes some products have been launched too early versus the maturity of the market or you can have a competitor that could come in and destroy your whole strategy.
And so it's also very important in this type of role.
It's not about focusing what is inside the company, but also what's happening in the market.
So, knowing your competitors, knowing what the competitors are doing, what type of profitability they are having on some of the products and so on, and identify okay, what are the white space where it's good to go, or areas where you think okay, you can have more products, more players and so on, and where you can be successful.
So, for example, when we decided to acquire the company Tropico, we identified okay, there was a white space in that market in France with a good opportunity, a good value in the product, and we had a nice business plan and we're able to move across that acquisition.
Now, a few years later, the dynamics of the market have changed quite a bit, so it's maybe Again.
If I look back 10 years ago, I'd say maybe the financials where they are now might not be where we expected them to be.
But yeah, I mean, you cannot predict everything in the future, but you need to ensure that whatever you're planning to do, it makes sense when you're doing this and that you've got a good understanding of the dynamic of the market.
And when you come into those conversations as the voice of finance, where you're talking to go-to-market and marketing in general and you're looking at all these, is it difficult or is there a playbook?
Or what do you do to get non-finance leaders to how do you earn their trust when you come in with look, I'm the numbers guy.
I'm showing you the model.
This is what it's telling us when they're probably looking at it a different way.
I think first you need to make them talk.
I think people are always keen when you ask questions about what they're doing, why they're doing this, what they did before, what they see as being the factors of success, and so on.
So it's more about listening.
Okay, what is driving your counterpart in marketing, technical and so on?
And what is really driving?
I mean, what is motivating them in that project and trying okay, what is going to make them more receptive to the financials that you're going to share?
Because, I mean, if you come with your playbook, some people are more sensitive to finance and others.
And if you come and say okay, this is that, and if people don't understand okay, what is a NPV, how payback is calculated, and so on.
I mean, you need also to understand, okay, what they're coming from.
And it's also about educating them about the financials what you're going to look at and really build the trust and the partnership.
Because if you come and say okay, I've run the financials, it's not going to work, or you need to change this and that not asking about the why or not coming in a collaborative way, it's not going to work and they're not going to listen to you.
It takes time.
I remember a few professionals where I had to explain, like I don't know, maybe it ten times how the PL of their brand works.
And you need to be patient around that.
But then they appreciate it because they learn something.
It's not.
Maybe there are areas where they feel comfortable with or interested in, but you explain five, ten times, and so on.
But then when they see that you're making the effort, then they also listen to you better.
Yeah, it's funny.
Long time.
Listeners of this show will know this, but whenever I think about talking, you know explaining finance to non-finance people.
I was a CFO of a company that owned car washes years ago.
And all the managers were blue collar.
Mechanical plumbing engineering, you know mechanical plumbing, electrical types, people.
They had never seen a financial statement in their life, but they were bonused every month because we were building to sell.
They were bonused on their performance to budget and what their EBITDA was.
It was amazing when they were motivated how quickly they could learn.
After six months of looking at their financials with them, you'd think I was talking to a Goldman Sachs analyst when I showed up at their at their location.
But that is, I mean, that's Being able to translate and communicate.
That is important and that's part of the storytelling, part of our roles, I guess.
Yeah.
And then in the end, I mean, the storytelling is quite important.
So how you're telling the story?
To your senior leaders to convince them that it's a good project, but also to your partners, to ensure that they get your message, especially when it's less positive.
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So, as we when we talk before the show, you strike me as someone who loves a challenge and loves solving complex problems.
And I'm thinking looking at your career progression you were running finance for an entire country and the CFO seat.
And then you moved to a global role where you stood up FPA Finance, shared services for the international operations.
And I think a lot of people might look at that move and say well, why would you move out of the CFO chair?
For you, what was your thinking behind that transition and what did the role kind of allow you to do that you weren't able to do in the CFO role?
Yeah, I mean, I like new challenges and I like to, I would say, shape the conversation. been working in a big company like coca-cola when you're a cfo in the country i mean you're part of i mean the bigger picture but you don't always have all the levers because you're part of a group in that case it was the european group and then you're part of the global strategy.
And when you're working in finance in a company like Coca-Cola, things are quite also centralized in the way they are being run in terms of system and so on.
So I was like, okay, how can I get a bit more influence around that?
Because I work also with some more like local Europe transformation project in the past.
And there was, at the end of the COVID, so there was a big reorg in the company.
And then they decided to set up this shared service FP&A, which was something new.
And then there was a role that was open in that organization.
I applied and the person was leading this who already worked in the past.
Because the person worked in Europe.
And then I ended up in this role where everything was new.
It was a story to be written.
So I had already relatively good knowledge of FPA because I already did the fpna lead for western europe.
So it was across 11, 12 countries across europe.
So we had a good knowledge on how it works.
But then it was about yeah, looking at the scale across all the international operations except north america which, which is a slightly different business from the international operation, but still 80 percent of the doing international operations, about 80 of the business.
And that was a very interesting time because I mean, basically the company had worked with consultants about the RE-ORG and the consultant kind of work on what should be the design of the organization.
So basically, what was happening is that we were moving 80 of the roles of FPAs into shared service organization.
More like 90% of those roles were externalized to a third party, to MSP at the same time.
And we had to work on that transition over three months.
And that was the middle of the COVID.
So it was basically looking at a design that was made by consultants.
And I remember the first meeting I had with my boss saying, okay, this is your organization.
This is how it's going to work.
This is like three or four PowerPoints.
And in three months, we will be responsible for all of this.
I was like, okay, that was a bit more challenging than what I expected.
But yeah, no, I mean, we work in phases in a very short period of time, very long hours.
I think COVID helped on that.
And then, over the course of the three years, the evolution.
We also evolved the setup of the company, the roles,
We also clarify what is the role sold between the local team, the Coca-Cola internal team in the shared service and the external partner.
So it was a bit of fine tuning, but we did it in three months.
So we did the first closing at the end of March with still a lot of involvement of some of the local people were not.
We're also transitioning either in your roles in the company or transitioning out of the company at the same time and also training the MSP team and working on that.
And at the same time, there was a spike of COVID in india uh, and during that period of time, we also lost maybe yeah, a few of our associates uh, who died unfortunately, when it was the bike.
So it was really yeah, the first six months quite intense and challenging, but it helped us to Yeah, set up the process, set up the rules.
And then in phases we're able also to refine the organization so that we can get to something which was a bit more optimal versus the initial thinking of the consultant.
That's that.
When we talked before the show I didn't realize that you were.
You had kind of a roadmap from the consultant.
And that was going to be my next question was how close was what the consultant visualized?
What ended up happening?
And then I'm wondering so you've got the roadmap, so you sort of have some rails, but you know what works and what doesn't.
Are there any big decisions you had to make on sort of the structure of it?
And, at the same time, where you're doing BPO and trying to factor all this and all that, it seems like it would be hard to navigate, especially in the midst of COVID, keeping local teams from feeling like they were losing something in the process that you're still going to deliver everything.
It just.
I can imagine, especially with what's going on in the world, that it had to be be an intricate setup and you were walking a tightrope there.
It sounds like yeah no, i think several things.
First, the people that we moved into the our internal short service uh, were very good and strong people and very knowledgeable about the process and how it works, So they really play a key role in educating our MSP on our processes and how to optimize the work and review the work.
And the people that remain in the field, in the operations, even if it was much less than before.
The people remaining also partner very closely with us and with the MSP and also step up to do some incremental work and so on.
So I think in the end everybody was working I don't know 60 70, 80 hours a week for a few months, to ensure that it would work.
The feedback we're getting from the operations, because we had a rating from.
I would say the satisfaction level for the first six months was more between, depending on the regions, between three to 35, which is not so great.
But yeah, little by little, we improve the processes or we work on standardization.
Also, the capabilities of the MSP improved.
We work also a lot on simplification and new tools that I will talk, I think, later about machine learning, automation and so on.
That helps the process so that we were able to stabilize.
And now, when i'm looking at the feedback that our fpna activities is getting from the, the customers, it's between four to four point five so, which is quite a good score in that area, but it's a journey.
I don't know if there's a good way or a better way to do it.
We did it in a certain way.
We're able to keep it together.
I think in the end it delivered.
There was a lot of pain.
But if we had done it differently maybe it would have been less pain, but maybe the process would have taken.
And just to I mean yeah, we had to set this up in three to four months.
So, which is a very short period of time, when you think it's across 180 countries at the same time and in the middle of a global reorg.
So it was not only that team that was changing, but the whole finance team was going through a reorg at the same time and the whole company was going through a reorg.
So I think maybe 30 to 50% of the people changed roles during that period of time.
So it was multiple moving pieces at the same time and trying to juggle and ensuring that no one would crash in the end.
And in the midst of doing this and I see this a lot in my day job when I'm not hosting the podcast but a lot of companies are moving towards this hybrid model with the MSP.
From your experience now, with a few years working with that, are there areas where the MSP relationship tends to work better?
Are there areas where there's necessarily going to be friction that you see that would be not just at Coca-Cola but sort of a global thing?
Just from your experience of what you see working with MSPs?
I think yeah, my advice ensure that you get a clear role sort about what each of the partners should be doing.
So between your operations, your internal team in the shared service and the MSP.
And I would say that when we started that's really where we focus a lot of time at the beginning, realizing that the role sort was not clear enough.
I think it's also ensuring that everybody is doing what they're supposed to do.
So basically operations should focus on the business and the operations.
To me, the internal team should more focus on process optimization in the end.
So how to drive simplification automation, improvement of the processes, bringing the tools and the MSP is more about the execution of those
To me, that's kind of the ideal role sort.
I'm seeing now MSPs, they're not motivated to automate.
You give them the SOP, they do the job.
They'll do that same job for 20 years the exact same way.
To your point on internal teams doing the process.
That makes a lot of sense, especially with where technology is right now, with automation being so much easier than the old rpa and the you know tools we used to have to use for automation.
Yeah, and then it's also how you structure the contract.
So do you structure a contract based on the the people that the msp is is hiring or is it based more on the delivery?
Good point yeah, which is then a different conversation.
Because if you focus more about the delivery and the cost of delivery, the MSP then is more prone to accept automation and changes.
Yeah, very good point.
You alluded to this earlier.
I'm really excited to hear you break this down.
You're automated like the baseline forecasting solution that use machine learning to speed up the planning cycle.
Can you walk us walk us through that?
Yeah.
So that was just a few months after the setup of the MSP.
So, still working on how we can improve, standardize the read, the forecasting process and try to remove because the way yeah, just to recap, the way we did the transfer to the MSP, we did as is, so we did a knowledge transfer of the as is process and then we work on process optimization.
So, looking at top line forecasting and all those things, i think we iterated a lot of excel or different, or either local tools or excel from the different countries and say okay, how can we ensure that we've got a tool which is the same across all the geographies, So that, and if we can remove Excel from the picture, because you know Excel yeah, it's nice but it's prone to errors.
I mean, formula errors, whatever cells disappearing and all these type of things.
And it's also each of the Excel was part of the legacy of whoever was doing this for the last 10 or 20 years a lot of uniqueness, but also having a tool taking into account that our business is relatively simple.
I mean, we're making beverages and we're a company with almost 40 years of history.
So I would say that...
We've got a lot of data and we've got a lot of history on how things are consumers and so on are behaving in the market.
So how we can leverage technology to speed up the process for the top lines forecasting.
So we basically develop a tool and it will help, based on historical data and a series of drivers, to determine a baseline by country, by range of product, by packaging and so on, and then you've got a dashboard that people can refer to and then they can make directly change in it and so on.
If they say okay, that yeah, in this country we're going to launch a new product, so how do i add this new product?
We put a new customer in.
How do we own that product?
So maybe we're going to sell more, or that factory is going to be shut down, or there's election in this country, or there was a typhoon last month.
So this has some impact and so on.
So then they can make those changes.
And also it's about driving subcultural change and telling people OK, you need to focus on what matters.
You don't need to check that all your thousands of SKUs the smallest one, you've got the perfect forecast, but focus maybe on the 20 that will make 80 of your forecast.
And when you were building this, do you have data scientists on your team, or was this working with the data science group in a partnering way?
Yeah, it was a partnership with the data scientists.
So it's a custom-built model and we're also working with a partner and that was a v1.
So Now I mean, I'm no longer involved in that, but there's a V2 where the model has been kind of refined.
There are several models that exist and countries can pick up the model that fits best their local setup.
So and also it's running faster.
I think the first time that we run the model, it took maybe like one day to get the full forecast for the entire company.
When I moved to my other project, I think it took only a couple of hours.
And I think maybe now it's maybe an hour or maybe less to get the same result.
And the accuracy keeps improving.
And I guess that part like FPA would come in and have ideas of the features that are sort of known to FPA, the features that will impact the model, and then data scientists will go off and run all their statistical modeling and figure out which ones, you know, the correlations that actually do matter, and all that.
But it's in building projects like that I always wonder about, especially as more and more gets automated about FPA teams in the future.
Do you think that the data scientist skill set remains a separate skill set?
Or do you think FPA folks are going to start because now maybe you don't have to learn Python to get in there if you can get generative AI to help with it?
Do you see FP&A changing to be more of a data scientist?
Or do you think those two stay separate?
I think you will still need data scientists, because I mean you've got unique capabilities and so on.
And You cannot transform an AFPNA associate into a data scientist like this.
I mean, some can, but not all of the AFPNA team.
I advise vice versa.
But then you see the change in capabilities, because you need to ensure that your FPA team working on those projects and so on, they need to be able to communicate with the data scientist and tell them okay, what matters, the why, and so on.
So they need also It's also about the storytelling around that.
And also you need to ensure that you've got data scientists that adapt to the specificities of the company.
Because I mean you can build a model but you need to understand how the model is going to be used, what are the impacts if something is not going correctly, how you can check if something is in the model doesn't seem to be logic, and so on.
So there's more partnership between the FP&A team in charge of this and the data scientists.
I don't think that you would turn FPA into data scientists, because it's not exactly.
I mean, it's not the same type of role, but you need to ensure that you've got this skill set in your FPAT.
And then, from the FPA point of view, I think the storytelling and the change management skills are quite key, because I mean you need to pivot yourself because the ways of working, how you would do your top line forecast, is different, but also you need to translate this to your operations that you're working with.
Because if you come and if you say okay, the machine is telling me that the growth is going to be 23.
You're telling me three.
I'm going to put what the machine is saying 23, not going to go very well with your local GM.
So it's more how you position, okay, the machine based on that is telling this.
And then it's about providing a point of view saying okay, it's saying 23, but we lost that customer.
So that forecast maybe need to fine tune down, or the weather forecast for the next three weeks, because I mean we're very dependent on the weather.
It's going to be a 30 degrees Celsius in March.
So it's going to boost consumption.
So maybe we need to revise that because last year it was super cold and it was snowing.
I mean, this type of things where there's limitation to the machine.
So you need to say, okay, this is the baseline.
If nothing change, and this is what we should add.
And this is the why and why we think we should change things.
So again, it's a base forecast.
It doesn't replace yet the local GM, local CFO and so on.
I mean, they're responsible for whatever forecast.
They're putting the system.
Yeah, we can automate everything.
You can push the button and say it's okay.
Work is done.
Then I can go to have some drinks and beers or whatever in the evening.
But you need to know exactly what you approve.
So maybe the machine is telling I mean is providing something because nothing is happening this month, nothing specific, nothing that would tell me okay, things would be different versus the baseline.
Then you can just copy paste.
But then you need to explain why I'm using the baseline as is, because I don't have any more relevant data points to add to the baseline.
What I like to hear about the way you guys are approaching from automation to analytics to systems.
So that's a good example of building something internally, a model that uses all the data that you have, that you're able to help with that, at least the baseline planning.
But at the same time, you're doing some work with existing systems that are out there off the shelf.
The most recent project you're on is the global marketing finance transformation, where you're redesigning how marketing expenses are managed across your S4 platform and integrated with tools like, I think, Adobe and adaptive planning.
You're just through phase two.
I guess at a high level.
What problem were you solving and what does the new model look like compared to what existed before?
So basically what we're trying to I mean, marketing expense is quite key for the Coca-Cola company because it's a few billion dollars that we are managing and we are a marketing company.
So I would say marketing our primary customers.
So I think the objective was really first, how we enhance the user experience, whether your marketing, your finance, but also our MSP how we can simplify the whole process around your forecast also of activities and allocation of resources.
So, for example, before that project, we used to ask the marketing team to plan their different activities using 120 different accounts for the full year in November.
So asking them okay, what you're going to do, how you're going to spend your money in details for Christmas 2027, for example?
And people did not know, so they would put placeholders and so on.
So we simplified the whole process so we know they're planning on focusing on 10 different accounts.
So it's much more high level, so it's less granular in terms of forecast, but it reflects much more the reality and it changes much less during the year.
But also we're adding some improve master data.
So for example, we're tracking some ESG spendings, specific digital spending and so on.
So another dimension.
So the objective is really ensuring that we've got the data that matters, because sometimes less data is more data that you can leverage.
And also it's more consistency that you can get across the organization, the different ous.
But also we work on how we can get some connection point with the tools that the marketing is using.
So, for example, I'm talking about Adobe tools.
That's where people are doing their project management for marketing.
And the marketing project is usually planned over, depends on the project, over nine to 24 months.
For example, right now we're starting the planning for the 2028.
Olympics in LA.
So that's already part of the planning.
So we're ensuring that those master data upstream connect with our in-year planning, but also we're connecting this to how we are managing the media, which is much more detailed and which is also much more granular in terms of spend, but it's also much more volatile so that we can get, for example, yeah, the thinking would be, you know, how much you're going to spend for the Olympics 2028.
We will be able to zoom in how it's being spent, by type of spend, but also across the different countries.
And then, when it's executed, we could link how much you're spending on the Olympics LA at Meta in Hong Kong.
And we can link this and then you can also know how much we invested with Meta for the Olympics in LA.
Which then helps also some of the marketing ROI tools that we are building and so on.
And also this standardization of master data will help us to develop some AI assistance.
Because I mean, if the master data is structured in a way that is standard across, then you can start leveraging technology and AI.
Yeah, I mean, the data has to be the foundation of it.
And that's the biggest companies in the world.
I talk to them all the time.
It's amazing how many people are still struggling with standardizing their master data.
So it's simplification.
And in the end, it's also lowering the cost of operating.
Because the more standard and the more simple and then the more automation you can put in place, then the lower the cost of treatment of the information.
As we think about automation and AI.
We talked before the show about that gap between kind of what AI vendors will tell you they can do and then the reality of implementing it at scale.
I think all of our listeners are hearing kind of those same vendor pitches right now.
What's your experience been, and is there a reality check that we can given we think about?
Yeah, generative AI is great for summarizing emails or whatever, but how does it incorporate into what we're doing actually at the enterprise level?
Yeah, I think there's a lot of tactical benefits.
Yeah, summarizing emails, helping you for some variance analysis and so on.
And it's something that you can do easily with Copilot, but it's more like At your individual level.
It's not something that you can scale.
Now, when you start thinking, OK, what's the next step?
How can I develop, for example, a BI assistant that can help you retrieve data from several system analysis, rather than going through different Power BI and so on, or get directly the information you need without trying to navigate some of the reporting?
So i remember my boss telling me yeah, i talked to that company and they say again one way they can set up the bi assistant.
And then when we started to explore together with our global ai team, then you realize i mean yeah, i mean you can set up something very quickly in a week uh, but basically what you're going to get is crap, Because first you need to ensure that your master data is there and organized in a way that the AI will be able to get something out of it.
So I think that's what we did in this project.
So I think that's the basis.
That's what you need to start with.
But then also you need to train the end AI.
You need to do a lot of prompts.
Assess how people are going to ask the prompt to get in the end the result you need.
And then assess, is it always going to give you the right answer?
Because it's never 100% accurate.
But you need to ensure that yeah, at least you got 98 99 of accuracy to get there and the training and the prompt and so on.
I mean it's three to four months to get there, it's more than a week.
And then also you need to train the people saying okay, i mean, don't trust 100 what you're getting for, i mean if it doesn't make sense or if the output surprise you, or please do some double check, because I mean it's never 100 accurate, because I think yeah, some of the risk is that people think okay, it's automated, it's AI, so it's 100 accurate.
But it's not always the case.
So it's something that people need to watch out also when they start using the tools.
Yeah.
How do you and I think you kind of hit on this already, but I'm really thinking about this as a We see this across organizations where, whether it's key pockets or certain individuals who are really pro AI and they've figured out they're, they're good at using it and they know you know when to check and when not.
But they're kind of sometimes they're cowboys.
They're off. doing it on their own.
Or sometimes it can be like a whole country team that they want to lean in.
But at the corporate level, you have to think more about, like you said, building things to scale.
So how do you strike that balance between, yes, we understand this is a new technology.
We want to encourage innovation, but we have to prevent Fragmentation and losing sight of where these answers are coming from or how they're calculated.
It's got to be, I mean, I feel I'm asking that because I feel like everybody's sort of going through this right now.
Yeah, what we have done is that we've got like an AI committee.
So whatever AI use case and so on, they go through that committee and they check okay, is this AI case make sense?
Is it something comparable to some other AI cases and ensuring that people are using the same technology?
I think the fact that we move basically all our finance into MSP and we standardize a lot all the processes and so on, so give us a bit of grip on what could be done locally, because all the reporting is centralized and all of this.
So I think it limits a bit the local initiative.
Now what I'm saying is that locally there's a bit of frustration because some people are a bit more mastering AI and so on.
I think they are doing some trial using Copilot and so on.
I cannot say that I know exactly what's going on across all the 180 countries.
Shadow AI and so on.
But I think it helps us to kind of control what is going on.
But I think there's a bit of frustration that the pace is quite slow from a corporate level versus the expectations locally, especially when people are seeing all those AI use cases and all those demos where you think about SAP jewels and so on and so forth.
It's all wonderful world, and everything is done automatically.
But again, it's a demo in a perfect environment.
Everything is well-trained, but it's not always the reality.
I don't know if you saw the New Year show in China, did you?
For the year of the whole season with the robot dancing?
I mean, doing this.
I mean, there were hours and hours of training for that performance.
So to get there, it's not like okay, somebody did that the week before and the robots and they did that.
Yeah.
And now if they would want to do different moves, it's going to take a bit of time to do it.
So it's like people say yeah wow, it's great and so on, but it's not the marketing brochure and that's reality, which is a bit different.
That's a great comparison.
All right.
I'm watching our time here.
There is one question I really want to get to, because you said something that really resonated with me.
And I think maybe a lot of our listeners.
We all want to hit the pinnacle of our career and we see okay, we're in finance.
We see like one clear path.
But you said something that maybe our listeners don't hear enough.
You said not everyone is meant to be a CFO, and pushing toward that title just because the industry tells you that's the pinnacle, it can lead to failure if it's not aligned with your actual strengths.
So I guess walk me through your thinking on that.
How do you help someone figure out what their real edge or advantage is, especially early in their career?
Yeah, I know.
I think it's for people really to focus on what they like to do and not what they think people are expecting them to do.
And that's where the focus should be.
I remember one person from my team kept saying, kept telling me, OK, I want to be the cfo and cfo and that person thinks she's got a lot of good quality she could be a okay cfo but she really thrived in more like in project management networking and this type of environment uh which is less an environment of a cfo and i told her at some point in time you need to think yeah okay what what you like to do and where is your strengths and that will help you to accelerate your career.
So it's yeah, focusing on what you like to do, your strengths, and don't say okay, because I'm doing fine, I want to be safe.
It's the same for marketing.
It's not because you're doing marketing that you're going to be a CMO.
And it's also, yeah, do you like to work in a big company?
Or you prefer to work in a startup, or you want to be a fractional CFO, which is also a different type of approach and work.
And I think it's less the case.
But when I started, I remember all the career reviews and so on in there.
It was always OK, who is going to go next to be a CFO, and so on.
Then we've got very strong people, very good experts, or people with different, unique skills and we had some difficulties to map them okay where they should go.
I think now at the company we're paying more attention to that and okay, these people, they can evolve in that direction, other directions so, and we see carrier paths to be much less linear than what they used to be.
And do you see people who might do?
They do fine, they do great in finance, and they come and they start their career in finance, but not only are they not directed towards CFO, but maybe finance becomes a foundation and you actually direct hey, you know this is, you have this finance foundation, but it's clear that your interest is going to marketing or going just getting out of finance in general, or do you?
Yeah, I have got several examples like this.
So yeah, someone was in my team when I was CFO in France.
Now is in charge of all the commercial development in France.
So it's working on, because they really enjoy working on those standards project and so spend a lot of time with the commercial team.
And now i think he's going to have a great commercial career and i think our career is going to be less and less linear in the future and it's going to be less and less technical.
So, taking into account technology and so on right, Like 15 years ago, you had a lot of good finance people.
They were really super good at doing macros.
Then a lot of people learned about coding.
Now people are learning about prompting.
In five years from now, what it would be, we don't know.
Yeah, very good point.
So we have our last two questions we ask everybody.
And the first is, what's something that not many people know about you that may be been on your social media or LinkedIn profile?
Yeah, something I didn't put on my LinkedIn profile is when I was in China.
So I work in marketing for a launch of a new product which was focused on it was an estrogen product to focus on menopause.
And basically we set up a club for menopausal women in Beijing.
And I was nominated to be the vice president of that committee.
The vice president of the menopause club.
Yeah, you can see a French guy.
I was like 23 years old at that time.
That's good.
You should get some kind of plaque or badge or something made.
So you could put that on your LinkedIn profile, just to spark conversation.
Okay.
I know you've been doing this a long time.
I'm still thinking back to the floppy disks and I'm sure you were early on a user of Lotus Notes and all the fun stuff that came before Excel and all that.
I don't know how much time you're spending in Excel now, but I imagine, with as much time as you have spent, that you do have a favorite Excel function.
So do you have a favorite Excel function and why?
So I use Excel much less than before, but the function that I really liked, especially when I was doing commercial finds of CFO, is Goal Seek.
Yes.
It felt like magic.
Yeah, to me that's a function that it's quite handy to do quick reality check, especially when you're working on the whole project IARs and this type of things.
Yeah, that's great.
And now I guess people just ask generative AI, but I love to goal seek, too.
And it just.
You could feel like a wizard where you just put in a number and watch everything flip through and get to get to what you needed.
That also might have been what you did at midnight, when you couldn't get the model to show what you needed to.
And it's like, well, we're just going to.
We'll just run this.
Well Sebastian, I really appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your insights and just really enjoyed our conversation.
