Scaling Accuracy and Transparency Across 20 Units: How Scandic Moved from Country‑By‑Country Budgets to a Unified, Automated Forecasting Platform with Board
Scandic Hotels is a leading hotel operator across the Nordics, with about 280 hotels across 3 owned brands and 130 destinations. Their financial and planning analysis software no longer supported their needs as they embarked on a journey to transform their finance processes. They looked for a common solution for operational and financial planning, across all their markets, that would support new ways of working as well as their future expansion.
The Challenge: Fragmented, manual Planning Process
Scandic Hotels faced challenges with their previous financial planning process. Each country operated independently using Excel-based methods that varied widely in structure, detail level, and the teams involved. The result was a time-consuming process that lacked consistency and transparency.
Pain Points:
- Lack of transparency behind final figures
- Inability to consolidate data in a structured, visible way
- Excessive manual work
- Disparate reporting and planning structures between countries
Mattias Lundqvist
Our previous planning process was quite long and time consuming, with many people involved. And it was also very fragmented between countries that had different processes, level of details or teams involved from operations to finance.
Trigger for Change
Scandic Hotels’ current platform could no longer support the company’s growth ambitions or evolving needs. They needed a scalable, efficient, and integrated system to support future expansion and improve financial planning accuracy and visibility.
“We wanted to make our planning process more efficient, harmonized, with improved accuracy and transparency”, says Mattias.
Solution Implemented: A Unified Platform with Board
Scandic Hotels implemented Board as its centralized platform for planning, reporting, and consolidation. The tool was rolled out across multiple use cases:
- Annual Planning and Forecasting
- Daily Operational Planning
- Legal- and Operational Consolidation, Reporting and Analysis
“We wanted a platform that was able to do everything from a detailed day-to-day planning up to long-range planning up to a seven-year horizon”, explains Mattias.
Why Choose Board?
- A unified, scalable approach
- Ability to combine financial consolidation, planning, and analytics.
- Scalable platform to support future expansion (including adding new hotels) and increased complexity.
- Data transparency across planning
- Single source of truth across the group
- Automated workflows for consolidation
Erica Swensson
Being able to consolidate our figures using unified chart of accounts and common definitions has given us a much better understanding of our figures. And if we need to—we can easily dig into the details for further insight.
- Flexibility and ease of use
- Tailored reports for different user types
- Drag-and-drop dimensions for custom views
- No need to manually export details from other systems
“Previously, we couldn’t drill down to individual transaction level and had to export data from multiple systems for detailed analysis. With Board, having one data source not only saves time by eliminating manual exports, but also enables our users to directly access the information they need”, explains Erica.
- Competitive pricing
- Scalable licensing model
- Suitable for Scandic Hotels’ large user base
“Board was very competitive when it comes to pricing.” (Mattias)
- Real-time updates
- Group-level finance teams no longer wait days for country-level submissions
- Data now available in near real-time for reporting and analysis
“Now we can update the figures on an hourly basis if we want”, says Erica.
Business Outcomes: Improved Efficiency with faster Processes and fewer Resources’
- Fewer people involved in the planning process
- Automated workflows replace manual data exchanges
“Implementing Board has shortened our planning time cycle from a couple of months to a few weeks in the yearly process. We also don’t have to wait days for the countries to submit their final data, we can see it in real-time”, says Mattias.
Mattias Lundqvist
Using the capabilities of Board, we shortened our annual planning time cycle from a couple of months to a few weeks.
Data quality and transparency
- Unified, driver-based models used across all hotels and countries
- Rolling forecasts can now be implemented as part of the monthly close
- Transparent inputs allow stakeholders to see what’s behind every number
“Board is not just helping us to save time, it’s also helping us achieving better quality. We are now consolidating in the same way throughout the whole organization. We are saving thousands of man-hours in the financial planning processes”, finds Mattias.
Ease of use driving adoption
- Intuitive, user-friendly interface
- Clear navigation and focused data views replace multiple Excel files
“We have received great feedback from the hotels – it’s easy to use, intuitive and the performance is fast”, summarizes Erica.
Tailored reporting and analysis
- Customized dashboards built for each user group, from hotel staff to executives
- Live drill-downs during meetings support interactive, data-driven discussions
- Revenue data is now monitored daily by users across the organization
“In meetings, we present results live and answer questions on the spot—it’s a big improvement”, states Mattias.
Automated rent calculation
- Rent forecasting fully integrated into the system, based on revenue projections
- Monthly rent calculations are done by the system– creating and sending journals through integration with their ERP system
- Utilizing Board as a contract database to consolidate and store contract data
- Over 300 manual Excel files consolidated into a single automated module
“We’ve brought together hundreds of Excel rent calculations into one automated process”, says Mattias.
About the Partner: Attollo
A crucial success factor in the Board implementation has been the cooperation between Attollo and Scandic. By collaborating closely with finance and operational teams at all organizational levels, the project team ensured the development of tailored reports that address the requirements of each role within the group—from hotel managers and sales personnel to group executives and country management.
This joint effort has significantly streamlined ways of working allowing for the seamless consolidation of both legal and managerial reporting utilizing the platform’s strengths. As a result, stakeholders can now gain insights across the entire organization, accessing unified, accurate data that delivers a comprehensive view of financial performance. Leveraging the robust integration capabilities of the Board platform, Scandic has connected multiple data sources, including ERP and operational systems, into a single, cohesive environment.
Pontus Andersson Frid
Board’s agile annual planning and forecasting capabilities have empowered Scandic’s teams to quickly and efficiently complete and revise budgets and forecasts. This flexibility is critical in the rapidly evolving hospitality sector, where both local and group-level decision-makers require timely, relevant data to drive strategic initiatives.
“It’s essential to have a partner who understands your needs”, confirms Mattias.
