“Abraxio has transformed the CFO/CIO relationship”

• Amaury Monnier (IS Director) :

As in any CIO, we have to reconcile the run, which is essential for day-to-day operations, and the build, which prepares for the future. Over the last few years, we have also worked hard to establish a culture of transparency and Agility with the business units, which is now a real asset.

• Sébastien Albanez (Chief Financial Officer):

As CFO, my major challenge is to ensure optimum allocation of Resources. I have to provide financial guidance and ensure that every euro spent contributes to overall performance, but also give visibility to the Codir and demonstrate the profitability of investments. This is particularly true for IT, which accounts for almost 30% of the company’s Workload.

• Amaury Monnier (CIO):

The project portfolio comes first: Abraxio makes our lives easier throughout the entire project management cycle, from scoping to communication. It allows us to document all our projects, track their progress in a highly automated way, assess team workloads, and easily generate reports and summaries for management. It saves a significant amount of time during project reviews and fosters better communication.

• Sébastien Albanez (DAF):

Yes, the Budgets are the common thread running through all our discussions. At each forecast, we check the trajectory together. Another highlight is the annual calculation of the IT cost model inspired by Cigref. Abraxio helps us a great deal by providing a detailed breakdown of costs by activity, between Run, Build and Projects.

• Sébastien Albanez:

Yes, because the CIO is a special department in that it mobilizes a lot of Resources, even though its impact is not always visible to the other departments. So what I expect is clear communication and total transparency. On this point, Amaury has a real quality: he knows how to explain what is done, what is not done, and why. This builds trust and makes it easier to allocate Resources.

• Amaury Monnier:

We deployed Abraxio in 2022. Initially, we were looking for a tool to structure budget tracking and secure our Vendor management. Today, Abraxio has become an essential part of our daily routine, with 3 main uses:

• Tracking budgets: consumed, committed, forecasts… This gives us a reliable vision that we can share with the CFO.
• Tracking suppliers and contracts: we store all contractual documents, have set up automatic alerts for due dates, and share access with the legal department and CFO. This secures management and simplifies our exchanges.
• Time tracking, which is now integrated into Abraxio and broken down directly in the Budgets between run and build. It’s a real qualitative leap: previously, we had partial tracking in Excel. Now we have an exhaustive view, with figures to the nearest euro.

• Sébastien Albanez :

For my part, I use the platform mainly for tracking contracts, and especially for calculating annual IT costs. The data from Abraxio is more detailed than that from my accounts. This gives me a better breakdown of Workloads and a more accurate view of profitability.

• Amaury Monnier:

The first is centralization: all the information is in one place, and I know where to find it and update it. The second is budget structuring: I can follow my Budgets line by line, while giving Sébastien the macro view he needs. And last but not least, it saves time: forecasts are much faster, as we both work on a common, reliable basis.

• Sébastien Albanez:

I can confirm that. For me, the benefits also include reliability and transparency. Before, I spent a lot of time checking. Today, I trust Amaury to deliver the figures, while Abraxio provides traceability. As a result, I save time, which I can devote to other directions.

• Sébastien Albanez:

Yes, definitely. I’m no longer the sole guarantor of the IT budget, I’m no longer solely responsible for it, we really share it. This changes everything in the relationship between a CFO and a CIO.

• Amaury Monnier:

And we’re becoming more responsive. When a question comes up, everything is already documented. We spend less time on data, and more time on the essentials: supporting Utwin’s growth.

• Sébastien Albanez:

I’d like to see Contract management Tracking, which is already very useful for IT, extended to other departments. It would be a real cross-functional document database, with automatic reminders for all deadlines, for example.

• Amaury Monnier:

For our part, we’ll be exploring the new Vendor reviews functionality. This will help us to further professionalize our partner relationships.