Why a startup from EY in the Netherlands is aiming to go global
Following its successful launch in the Benelux, Big Four firm EY is looking to bring a new financial planning tool for startups to entrepreneurs and startups across the globe. Having helped a succession of startups in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, EY Finance Navigator is to be gradually expanded to more than 50 of EY’s offices.
A financial plan is essential to success. It shows when and how much funding a company needs to raise, while providing insight into the future financial impact of strategic business decisions companies make today. By their very nature startups and scale-ups operate in high-risk environments, and not being prepared for a shortfall in cash, or an inability to raise funding can mean bankruptcy.
Despite this, following decades of working with startup companies, accounting and advisory giant EY found out that, while large companies and mid-sized businesses often possess tools to manage their financial planning and capital funding, startups lack similar options. For these new companies, which may well be short on cash, as they fight to get off the ground, this may be even more important. Rather than turning to a programming solution, though, many such firms try to tough it out on basic set-ups to save on money.
Lars Vereijken, co-founder of EY Finance Navigator, explained; “We found out that practically all startups we supported struggle with financial planning and therefore we built an intuitive Excel template for them to have a good starting point, however, Excel has its disadvantages too… errors creep in...”
In order to tap into the demand for a financial planning tool which could both improve performance and cut down on the costs a startup is faced with, Vereijken and his team sat down to devise a new online software solution. They aimed to build something to make financial projections easy and help entrepreneurs better understand their financials, while making sure start-up founders / CFOs remain in control of their own financials without hiring a financial expert or bookkeeper to do it for them. At the same time, the consultants looked to improve functionalities compared to Excel, such as adding bench-marking info and an algorithm providing tips and advice on how to improve, and create something more appealing in terms of ease-of-use, interface and design.
Intrapreneurialism
The idea they came up with would go on to become the EY Finance Navigator, but not before a stringent process of development and piloting. First things first, the team had to participate in an internal corporate innovation programme called “Innovate EY” – designed to promote entrepreneurship at the Big Four firm – to turn their idea into reality.
Wout Bobbink, co-founder of EY Finance Navigator, expanded; “In the Innovate EY programme EY colleagues get the opportunity to work on their own new business ideas resulting in new EY solutions for the market and in internal efficiency improvements… By the end of the accelerator programme we had about 50 pilot customers signed up and a very good idea on what our software should do in terms of functionalities and what it should look like in terms of design… That result convinced EY Netherlands’ board to provide us with the time and funding needed to execute our plan.”
The group immediately started software development, and ended up with its first release in the Netherlands at the end of 2017. It wasn’t all plain sailing however; “Our business case and way of working (a SaaS model) was quite new for EY, which meant that together with our colleagues we revised certain internal processes to fit with our digital offering.”
“While doing so we tried to build good relationships with our clients to collect their feedback regarding our software. Based on the feedback we gathered we developed a second version of the tool, which was the one which was released about two months ago, ready to be scaled globally.”
Co-founder Bobbink described the resulting platform as a tool which makes it easy to fill out the data to create a financial plan that is in line with the business plan, using a step by step approach, even if the user doesn’t have a financial background they are able to build it themself. The platform which exists today, having been groomed within EY in a classic display of ‘intrapreneurship’, is finally in a position to operate as a standalone offering to clients.
Bobbink said of what the platform offers; “The insights we provide help the user improve their financial models and provide actionable tips on how to improve the user’s financial management… By forecasting (using different scenarios) a startup can better prepare for such situations. Moreover, startups and scale-ups need a financial model to calculate whether they can achieve a viable business and need to be able to show their companies’ potential towards investors.”
Going global
Following a successful spell of aiding startups across the Benelux region, it is little surprise that the project is looking to go global at last. EY has more than 700 offices in over 150 countries, offering a fruitful hunting ground. At this moment, EY offices in more than 40 countries, including the UK and US, have shown their interest in using or selling the tool to local entrepreneurs, startups and scale-ups. To take advantage of this, EY Finance Navigator is building a global ambassador network within EY, meaning that in every country there is a go-to contact person for questions/inquiries related to Finance Navigator.
“These colleagues are typically involved in local startup ecosystems,” Bobbink said. “We can do a lot from the Netherlands, but if clients or prospects want to get in touch we want to be reachable in their own language with a person that is close by. We are selling online software, but personal contact and building personal relationships is very important for us.”
Moreover, he added, 'going global' means the group’s online marketing efforts will become more globally oriented instead of Netherlands focused. Over the past couple of months this resulted in an explosion for the platform, which now boasts users in about 30 different countries, from Australia to Argentina, from Thailand to Sweden.
The next hurdle that EY Finance Navigator faces, having become a global player in such a short time, is how to adapt to new markets and cultures. The platform is still exclusively English-language-based, which Bobbink justified as it is 'the language of startups', but how will it adapt to other ways of working around the globe?
Alexander Matthiessen, the third co-founder stated; “Exactly because of the issue this question addresses we have started building the global ambassador network we explained earlier, so that customers can talk to EY Finance Navigator ambassadors locally. For us this ambassador network serves as a learning mechanism teaching us about the differences in needs/ways of working in different countries. This helps us in adapting our tool to local requirements and perhaps at some point we might even build country-specific add-ons to our tool.”
In the end, the co-founders show belief that their solution will work on the back of the benefits to startups. Matthiessen concluded; “Having a financial plan in place is not only useful for an entrepreneur, but very often also a requirement in the process of raising funding. With our tool, users can easily create such a professional financial plan, without a finance background, saving them time of having to build one themselves. Users are better prepared for investor engagement by better understanding their financial case (funding need, profitability, margins, etc.) and the financial terms/definitions when raising funding (speaking the language of investors)." Furthermore, “users can create different scenarios of their financial projections in a fast way, enabling them to make informed business decisions. Our tool helps them anticipate the cash shortages that can lead to bankruptcy and the funding needed to achieve growth, in different scenarios.”
Related: Startups attract record level of funding from venture capitalists.