Jenza IENA Group

How Workday Adaptive Planning is helping the JENZA IENA Group to unify global finance operations following a multi-country merger.

Building a finance function fit for a newly merged global business

The JENZA IENA Group was formed at the end of 2024 following the merger of three businesses with over 60 years of history operating across Canada, the United States, Europe and Australasia. The organisation helps young people experience working holidays around the world, combining international travel opportunities with employment placements.

As a newly formed organisation, creating a unified approach to financial planning, consolidation and reporting quickly became a priority. With a finance team of seven people spread across London, Lisbon, Romania and New Jersey, bringing multiple legal entities together while maintaining visibility and consistency across the business presented a significant challenge.

Although still in the early stages of its Workday Adaptive Planning journey, JENZA IENA is already experiencing significant benefits from the platform, including faster consolidation processes, improved reporting capabilities and greater accessibility to business-critical information.

A thoughtful implementation focused on long-term value

Historically, much of JENZA IENA’s reporting and planning processes relied on Excel, Word and PowerPoint. The finance team produced management information, sales reporting, board packs and financial reporting through a collection of disconnected spreadsheets and documents.

To support the next stage of growth, JENZA IENA selected Workday Adaptive Planning and partnered with ICit Business Intelligence to deliver a more scalable and integrated planning platform. For JENZA IENA Group CFO, Anthony Mercer, selecting the right implementation partner was critical.

“We wanted somebody who would take the time to understand our business and not just translate the data we had into Adaptive, but challenge how we looked at things.”
Anthony Mercer, CFO, JENZA IENA Group

The objective was not simply to recreate existing reports in a new system, but to challenge established processes and design a better way of delivering information across the organisation.
The implementation process was both thoughtful and collaborative, with ICit taking the time to understand the nuances of the business while helping the finance team rethink how information should be structured and consumed by decision-makers.

Delivering faster reporting and better insight

Since implementing Workday Adaptive Planning, JENZA IENA has significantly reduced the complexity associated with managing multiple spreadsheets, reporting deadlines and geographically dispersed teams. The platform has streamlined monthly consolidation activities while creating a single source of truth for financial information across the group.

The business is also implementing Workday Adaptive Planning’s planning capabilities to support a more efficient budgeting process and improve forecasting consistency across all regions.

Alongside these improvements, OfficeConnect, dashboards and enhanced reporting functionality are helping finance deliver information to stakeholders more quickly and effectively. The result is improved visibility for decision-makers and greater confidence in the quality of business information.

Mercer believes the combination of faster access to data and improved reporting quality will play an important role in supporting JENZA IENA’s future growth ambitions.

Building the foundation for an AI-enabled finance function

Looking ahead, JENZA IENA sees Workday Adaptive Planning as a key component of its wider finance transformation strategy.
Like many finance leaders, Mercer is increasingly focused on how AI, automation and machine learning can improve productivity and decision-making across the finance function.

Rather than replacing people, the objective is to equip the team with better tools, enabling them to become more responsive, more efficient and more valuable to the wider organisation.

“It’s not about reducing the size of the team. It’s about making the team more effective, more efficient and
more responsive to our user base.”
Anthony Mercer, CFO, JENZA Group

With a strong foundation now in place, JENZA IENA is continuing to expand its use of Workday Adaptive Planning, delivering richer reporting, faster access to insights and a more agile approach to financial planning across its global operations.

Benefits of Workday Adaptive Planning

Faster monthly consolidation across multiple international entities
Reduced reliance on spreadsheets and manual reporting processe
Improved access to management information through dashboards and reporting
A single platform for planning, forecasting and financial reporting
Strong foundation for AI-enabled finance transformation
Early benefits realised despite being in the initial stages of deployment

In this video, Anthony Mercer, CFO at Jenza, shares their customer story and the reasons why they chose Workday Adaptive Planning for their FP&A solution.

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We have helped many businesses around the UK implement a range of Financial Planning & Accounting features, that are offered by Workday Adaptive Planning and the travel industry.

Our team of specialist Workday Consultants can discuss your exact business needs, advise you on how to implement Workday Adaptive Planning within your finance practices and also offer training to those staff who will be using the software day-to-day.

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