Condé Nast, a leading global media company renowned for its iconic brands, including Vogue, GQ, and The New Yorker, operates in over 10 countries with a portfolio of 36 brands. To manage its complex financial operations across diverse markets, Condé Nast chose Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) and Workday Financial Management to unify its worldwide HR and finance needs.
Automation and Workday Illuminate™.
To streamline processes and improve efficiency, Condé Nast leverages Workday automation capabilities and AI functionalities. Features such as supplier invoice OCR, and products such as Workday Expenses, including auto-routing rules and payment matching rules, reduce manual effort and allow finance teams to focus on more strategic work.
“One of the biggest benefits we can see with Workday is all of their capabilities around automation,” says Jonas Bonkamp, manager of accounting systems at Condé Nast.
Global standardization and process efficiency.
Workday Financial Management has enabled Condé Nast to standardize its financial processes globally, aligning the use of a single ERP system across all markets. This standardization has solved reporting and analysis challenges, enabling Condé Nast to operate more cohesively as a global company.
“If we want to add a new brand to a market like Germany, we can use processes that we have implemented in other markets and other brands,” says Bonkamp. “It is then way easier because we have a lot of things already built and we have a lot of experience in how they should work.”
Flexibility for local requirements.
While global standardization is essential, the flexibility of Workday Financial Management also allows Condé Nast to accommodate specific local requirements. This adaptability is crucial for navigating diverse tax regulations, reporting needs, and business practices across different countries.
Data-driven insights and analysis.
Now, Condé Nast has a single source of truth for financial data, enabling comprehensive reporting and analysis across all markets. This centralized view of data enables Condé Nast to gain deeper insights into its financial performance, identify trends, and make informed decisions.
“When we want to analyze something about our cash flow or our payment behavior in different markets, we have all the different information readily available in the system,” says Bonkamp. “We can easily compare them with each other, which then really helps us to draw any conclusions of which market is actually performing better, what are the trends and the best practices that we want to put into other markets’ practices.”
Seamless solution for recording expenses.
Employees are benefiting from using Workday Expenses, including optical character recognition. The mobile app makes it much easier for individuals to record their expense reports on the go by simply scanning receipts to auto-populate expense details.
Continuous improvement.
Biyearly releases at Workday provide Condé Nast with access to new functionalities and enhancements, enabling continuous improvement and adaptation to evolving business needs. This ensures that Condé Nast stays up-to-date with the latest technology innovations.
A foundation for global growth.
With a solid yet agile foundation with Workday, Condé Nast is able to manage its financial complexities effectively and support its continued growth now and in the future.
“Workday Illuminate helps us decrease the time needed to manually key information, giving more time to focus on world-class journalism.”
Manager, Accounting Systems