Frank Jons: chromatic explosions!
He could have ended up as a partner in an auditing firm, but a job interview convinced him to follow his true calling: painting. Interview.
Laurent De Buyser & Michael Diet: 15 years of Intensum
As independent European Consulting Company, INTENSUM is celebrating 15 successful years in the Advisory business with excellent reputation. INTENSUM has built a highly specialized team with a “People & Customers first” mindset & with close working relationships based on trust.
Can you present INTENSUM in brief?
Laurent De Buyser: We accompany CXOs of large international companies in their major transformational & digital projects to evolve towards leading “Intelligent Enterprises”, mainly by providing Senior SAP Consulting services. Our skills are focused on following areas: Finance & Treasury, Business Intelligence and processes improvement through Innovation using newest technology. Our specialisation goes hand-in-hand with controlled growth and our team members genuinely support one another to deliver the most challenging projects with SAP latest solutions. In this context, the absence of any project failure certainly enhances our reputation today. Over the course of our journey, our team has developed a real sense of trusted partnership together with our customers and Partners in order to rapidly deliver measurable value. We are therefore celebrating our 15th Anniversary with pride in the past and confidence in our future!
Michael Diet: INTENSUM provides “state-of-the-art” SAP Treasury solutions and operational tools our customers need to optimise their work and for enhancing their reporting & planning! We also oversee the roll-out of software packages and the rationalisation of cash management processes. Treasurers feel the need to measure their performance and to improve dashboarding and KPI’s for a more dynamic Treasury Management. To do this, new techniques come into play. The cloud, for example, is playing an increasingly important role, particularly in governing treasury-related services. Artificial intelligence and predictive analysis can also help to develop processes which enable to manage data, to forecast and to plan when it comes to the core business of CFOs: financial processes, planning and reporting. We help customers implementing “treasury-on-demand” solutions. This also responds to heavy demand from managers to be able to anticipate effectively and to make decisions almost real-time.
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"Thank you for your trust and collaboration, the INTENSUM Team is proud of what we achieved together with our People, Partners & Customers."
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What stages have there been in INTENSUM’s growth?
Laurent De Buyser: We obviously succeed through our People! A significant stage was to set up a clear strategy from the beginning, together with Stefaan Ovaere in Luxembourg and Philippe Van Geert in Belgium. A niche approach around Finance, Intelligence & Innovation which is still valid today, with particular attention to quality and long term collaboration with our People, Customers & Partners.
Our decision to choose Luxembourg as a base for our European development was also key due to its excellent reputation/network in financial & IT services expertise. We benefited from a high level of visibility which was also boosted by supporting major events such as the ICT Spring Europe Global Tech Conference, CFO Circles or the European Finance Innovation Summit. Major international companies soon put their trust in us and we managed to create an independent team, capable of leveraging its high level of specialization to successfully work on complex international projects. Our mission today still lies in attracting and retaining the most specialised profiles while training our talents in order to meet our customer’s needs.
Michael Diet: We managed to attract competent, motivated internal people who wants to get involved in international projects using innovative SAP solutions. We embarked on a worldwide search to find rare talents. However, we remain a close-knit company. We are also able to decline some contracts in case we could not bring enough value as we also want to ensure a trusted relationship with our customers.
After developing our footprint in both Luxembourg and Belgium, we now increasingly serve large customers in other countries across Europe and even further.
How do you see your business developing?
Michael Diet: We have just positively achieved one of our biggest project ever. A complete overhaul of treasury processes, supported by the latest technology, making it possible to achieve the organization objectives. Low-tech finance and treasury organizations are risking their organisation’s future if not adapted. Treasurers usually underestimate how they can impact bottom-line results and their contribution is even more significant today as companies have to re-organize to face COVID-19 challenges. We also see a high demand for simplification & real-time analysis, which is a must in the current economic situation. Organizations must be more agile than before. We can help with best practices and in view of the rapid changes in technology and regulations, it’s essential to focus on changing and adapting. We also have to anticipate new trends. Our special relationship with SAP makes it possible for us to keep a close eye on latest developments & innovations.
Laurent De Buyser: During times where uncertainty explodes, companies particularly have to rethink opportunities in order to do more with less, better/faster predict and act “real time”.
With our partners, I really feel our team is co-creating value in order to help our customers converting into even more Intelligent Enterprises! The evolution of SAP has taken an impressive turn over the last fifteen years. Their S/4-HANA platform, which is purely technological at its core, makes it truly possible to efficiently digitalize all processes. Regarding this COVID-19 crisis, efficient & dynamic Cash & Liquidity Management is more than ever a must and having greater integration/automation of financial processes is key to rapidly perform analysis on a much more frequent basis. Obviously, CFO’s must continue to upgrade and modernize their finance organization to match coming challenges and become more agile and resilient. Digital transformation will continue to help achieve this and a combination of talents like ours with Senior SAP competencies and relevant Business expertise will keep us being very well positioned to deliver value through successful projects.
