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25 March, 2016
It is a Wednesday morning in February and I just arrived at bol.com. I am on my way to my team with a cappuccino from the AH to go in my hand, when Daniel addresses me in the hallway. As Managing Director of bol.com, Daniel Ropers normally is the one who writes the columns and appears on television, but today he has a question for me: “So, do you already know what it is going to be?” Obviously he is talking about the period results of P1, which my team is finalizing. There is no figure as eagerly awaited as the periodic report of revenue and profit. My team produces this: they look at the revenues and the expenses booked by the administration, check if everything is correct and if all trends are understood. Eventually, they create a clear report with a few keystrokes. Nowadays, we do this three days after the end of the reporting period – somewhat different from five years ago, when I just started as Head of Controlling at bol.com.
I have always been curious to find out how that would work: a big company in an appealing industry, with a famous brand name, fast growth and an attractive image. But would it actually make money? And how do you keep track of all that? It turns out that it is not that simple. Financial processes did not keep pace with the quick growth and the complexity of the company in some respects. As a consequence, when I joined, we had to deal with a labour-intensive reporting process and a protracted period end closing. We did have the numbers, but only a fraction of the insight and understanding that we now consider as obvious. Earlier, there were times when we hardly understood if the decisions we took were the right ones. These decisions involved commercial ones like setting a price for the release of the newest game for the PlayStation, but also decisions about which projects the IT development teams should spend their time on.
Those IT-teams work on exciting things, for example downloading of games and software, an app that allows you to place an order with your fingerprint, or an algorithm that suggests products you might want, but have not thought of yet. At the Finance department, we always explore what is possible, but with the no-nonsense attitude, we focus on the financials and always create a solid business case: how much time will it take to build it and how will we earn this back? We help departments such as Marketing and Operations with this, so that they can realize as much growth as possible with the IT resources that are available.
This approach has not worked out badly, if we may congratulate ourselves: since 2010 the company has already doubled its revenue. However, we still want to be a small company. We would like to hold onto the human scale and informal culture from the time bol.com was still a start-up in a portable cabin. The financial processes have developed a lot since then, showing an accelerated improvement in recent years. This is necessary: in a company of this size, the Finance department should help in maintaining the overview and understanding the details.
It could be a challenge to deal with the huge data flows that bol.com generates everyday – think of registration of customers, clicks, orders, deliveries, invoices, products, etc. For the past two years, we have based our financial reports on big data and we know that we can drill down every financial effect to the details underlying that effect. Which products cause revenue growth? What causes the profit from some products to be higher than others? Who are our most profitable customers? Is it smart to lower prices so that we can sell more? Everyday questions for our commercial employees, but also questions that they cannot answer without a financial reporting environment that reliably links the big picture with the details. We built that environment with our controlling team, and maintain that, together with a group of business intelligence specialists and specialized IT developers.
Obviously, this only works when the figures stated in the system are correct and complete. Correctness and completeness are concepts which accountants love. An accountant will always tell you that your processes should be correct, that the numbers in your systems have to square, and that you have to bring your accounting information systems and risk management in order. For us controllers, correct and complete information is vital to give insight and to help the business make better decisions. At first, we faced some data quality issues, and consequently we have had to work hard on this theme. And, we have made some big steps: e.g. a step-up from 5% to 95% on the matching between ordered, delivered and invoiced goods purchases (3-way match). As a result, we can rely more and more on automated figures, which implies that reporting and analysis can be performed more smoothly.
Like today: we finished the period impeccably in a short time-frame. Not only we as a team did a good job, bol.com, too, generated a nice profit. “I will tell you more about it this afternoon” I tell Daniel, “but it will be a good period result!” And Daniel laughs assuredly, because he knows that controllers are not easily satisfied. But I am happy that, with an enthusiastic team of 20 controllers busy with almost every aspect of the finance profession every day, I am able to contribute by providing a vital ingredient in making bol.com the best shop in the Netherlands and Belgium!
The bol.com Controlling team is frequently hiring interns, recent graduates and experienced Finance professionals. Starting September 2016, we are opening a dedicated Young Professional Program for Financials. Did reading this article get you excited about the prospect of joining bol.com as a finance intern? Keep an eye on http://banen.bol.com, or contact recruitment@bol.com to stay in the loop for the May 2016 in-house day! (Please note that fluent written and spoken Dutch is a requirement for application.)
