Case Study

© Copyright 2013 Efima Oy

Case AttendoAttendo is the leading social and health-care services company in Finland. It is part of the Nordic Attendo Group. The company produces services for primary and dental health care in approximately 80 operational units. It also runs about 90 caregiving homes in different parts of Finland.

Attendo Finland has been growing at a remarkable pace in recent years. Virpi Holmqvist started as the company CFO five years ago, with the mandate to give the financial management department a fresh start. Since then, company turnover has tripled through organic growth alone. A couple of years ago, Holmqvist set a goal of building a world-class support function for the company. Now, with Efima as the company’s financial management partner, she believes that goal will soon be achievable. Workplace organisation, process development and partner utilisation have already helped the business to take big steps forward. In 2012, Attendo recruited almost 1,000 employees. Despite this, its financial management section has been running more efficiently than ever, even without additional recruiting.

World-class processes supporting remarkable growth

Holistic partnership‘When you are in the middle of rapid growth, you cannot develop a support function through recruitment,’ says Virpi Holmqvist, CFO for Attendo Finland. ‘It is more efficient to improve the processes and the practices at grassroots level.’ Holmqvist chose Efima as the partner for this task, and the compa-nies’ first joint project was mapping and im-proving Attendo’s payroll process. Holmqvist realised she had found genuine competence in Efima, and soon the collaboration was extended to outsourcing the company’s purchase-to-pay process. Efima’s exper-tise in Microsoft Dynamics AX proved to be preeminent in comparison to Attendo’s previous experience, and Attendo decided to acquire the financial management system from Efima as a cloud service. The collabo-ration became a holistic partnership, from which Attendo expects continuous develop-ment and improvement. Holmqvist respects Efima’s solution orientation and its way of working on its customers’ terms.

Learning for Attendo’s own operationsEfima’s competency, according to Hol-mqvist, can be seen in how concrete it is and how it finds even the smallest details that need to be fixed. Efficiency comes from

these discoveries and subsequent actions. The outsourced purchase invoice process is now more efficient than the former inter-nal one. Special thanks go to the system implementation project. ‘Communications in particular was top class. I was constantly aware of things on a sufficient, optimal level. We have not had another project this successful,’ Holmqvist notes. She says Attendo has even been able to learn from the project and improve its own business practices.

Growing appetiteVirpi Holmqvist has been appointed the head of Attendo’s municipal business unit. Her successor has been elected, and as part of the introduction phase, both execu-tives will attend a process development exercise run by Efima. ‘I expect a lot from it, and this is a splendid way to familiarise my successor with her job.’

Holmqvist notes that the level of expecta-tion has risen as Efima’s competency in different projects has become evident. She concludes: ‘We want our financial manage-ment to be world class, and benchmarking with bigger players is important.’ Processes have to be extremely efficient and scal-able, but excessive bureaucracy must be

Attendo is the leading Finnish social and health-care services company. It is part of Attendo Group, one of the largest care service providers in the Nordic countries. The company produces services for basic and dental health care in approximately 80 operational units. It also runs about 90 caregiving homes in different parts of Finland. Group turnover is about 700 million euros, of which Finland accounts for about 250 million euros. The group employs 13,000 health-care professionals.

Virpi Holmqvist, CFO

”With Efima as our partner, we develop world-class financial management.”

At a glance The challenges• need for a competent financial

management partner• requirements set by growth• world-class financial management goal The solution• Efima Finance as a cloud service

(Microsoft Dynamics AX)• Efima Outsourcing: purchase-to-pay• Efima Consulting: financial process

development The rewards• efficient processes and practices• successful system implementation and

continuous improvement• efficient, outsourced purchase-to-pay

process that supports growth• readily available expertise from Efima

© Copyright 2013 Efima Oy info@efima.com Tel. +358 10 470 5450 www.efima.com

Several mid-sized and large Finnish organisations have acquired their financial ma-nagement and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems as a cloud service from Efima. In addition to software, Efima offers outsourcing and consulting services in financial management. Solid, hybrid competency in financial management and information technology, along with solutions that truly support customers’ business goals, are the basis of Efima’s rapid growth and customer satisfaction.

avoided. Holmqvist thinks it essential that the partner company stay on top of the latest advances and transfer the benefits to clients. A growing company cannot focus on following best practices, but with a skil-ful partner, it can be done. Company growth then becomes a rewarding development opportunity for personnel as well.

SoftwareMicrosoftDynamics AX

Outsourcing Consulting