From spreadsheets to efficiency: How KONE managed to cut their financial data management workload
The challenge
Like many other companies in the past, KONE technology and innovation unit was using excel spreadsheets and other manual solutions for financial planning, monitoring, and budgeting. This approach, with hundreds of separate spreadsheets, led to inefficiencies, data silos, and time-consuming processes. Clear and more robust visibility to finance figures was needed.
The solution
KONE technology and innovation unit embarked on a transformation journey to enhance its financial data management and decision-making processes. The company partnered with Sofigate, a subject matter expert in the enabling technology business management (TBM) framework and supporting platform; Apptio. Together, we successfully navigated a multi-layered finance transformation journey, starting with KONE’s Information Technology (IT) unit and gradually extending to the Research and Development (R&D) and further into Technology and innovations units’ global functions over the years.
The outcome
With our help, KONE unified its financial data under One Apptio platform, integrating all three KONE technology and innovation units (IT, R&D, Global Functions) into a cohesive structure. Today, financial figures are all in one place, reporting takes a fraction of the time it used to, and data supports decision-making in real time. Major benefits include a significant reduction in manual work, and drastic improvements in data quality – results which clearly exceeded KONE’s expectations.
Imagine it’s year 2015. All your financial data, budgets and plans are scattered across different files and spreadsheets. Managing them takes hours of manual work, time that would be better spent elsewhere. Once you’ve put in the work, you see the figures nice and neat in your Excel sheet, but transparency to the neighbouring units remains limited.
Like many other companies at that time, KONE IT struggled with these financial data management challenges. To mitigate this time-consuming way of working, KONE IT realised that they needed a major change in their IT finance operations. In 2015 KONE IT launched initially a purely IT financial transformation programme and chose us as their consistent partner. Today, this long-term and successful collaboration has spanned more almost ten years and brought enhanced transparency, efficiency, and financial governance across the company’s finance operations within their whole technology and innovation unit.
Bringing transparency to finance figures
In an era of constant change, KONE recognised the need to renew its financial data management and decision-making process, prompting the launch of the finance management transformation journey.
After initial evaluations, KONE chose Apptio, a technology platform aligned with the Technology Business Management (TBM) framework, to drive the change. Sofigate was selected as the local partner due to our pioneering expertise in the selected platform.
“Although the initial objectives were focused on improving IT cost transparency, the benefits of the programme soon caught the attention of other key units within KONE Technology and Innovation function. By the end of 2024, the framework has been implemented in all three units (IT, R&D and KTI Global),” Account Owner Markus Aalto from Sofigate says.
Transformation spreads fast – aiming to expand across the entire organisation
Since 2016, we’ve partnered closely with KONE KTI on their finance transformation journey. Starting with IT, each Apptio rollout reduced manual work, improved clarity, and streamlined budgeting.
“The journey has brought financial clarity and better decision-making,” says Emmi Niemelä, Head of Business Controlling, IT & Centralized Functions.
Success in IT sparked interest across KONE. Research and development unit moved also from Excels into Apptio, gaining better cost visibility and unifying project oversights. In 2024, functions followed, automating budgeting and boosting transparency through user training.
Now, in 2025, the One Apptio initiative aims to unify financial data across all key units.
“Taking it step by step, with thorough evaluation, has made this long-term collaboration successful,” Aalto reflects.
“The journey has brought financial clarity and better decision-making,” says Emmi Niemelä, Head of Business Controlling, IT & Centralized Functions.
Significant drop in manual labour
The transformation process aimed to make smarter decisions, understand costs, and shape KONE’s future innovations by linking financial insights to its products and services. These have now all been achieved and even surpassed.
Perhaps the most significant result has been the major reduction in manual work. The use of Excel spreadsheets has decreased significantly across all units which has reduced manual labour with several hundreds of workdays annually.
“A huge advantage is the improved transparency of business figures, which allows better tracking and forecasting. Additionally, investigations and questions can now be resolved much faster, enhancing overall process efficiency,” Niemelä says.
Another major benefit is that the budgeting procedure has become more straightforward and less time-consuming. Data quality has also significantly improved, leading to the system’s expanded use within various units.
What’s next?
One of the primary goals for the future is to increase end-user engagement with the system and enhance their understanding of its features. This will further improve the system’s utilisation and data reliability.
The long-standing customer relationship of over eight years remains ongoing. “The current aim is to develop the platform to support even further KONE Technology and Innovation unit and possibly even business units. This will be a challenging endeavour in a positive way, with long-term cooperation paving the way for continued success and growth”, Aalto relates.
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