Big interview
Above: Sandvik’s operations involve not only digitalisation, but also innovating in the automation of mining machinery.
Previous page: Cecilia Felton, CFO at Sandvik.
aims. “I think the finance function has an important role to play,” is how she describes the interplay between greenbacks and the green agenda, an argument that seems especially prescient if you look ahead.
A mine idea
Felton is arguably the ideal candidate to lead Sandvik’s sprawling finance apparatus. Though still in her 30s, she’s already been at the Swedish giant for a decade, working in business control as far back as 2013. Since then, Felton has floated from accounting to investments, before becoming Sandvik’s chief financial officer in February 2022. To put it differently, this is an executive with the ability to reflect on her company’s journey over the long term – something she obviously relishes. “A lot has happened in Sandvik in terms of how we work digitally since I joined ten years ago,” she says, “and we are still in the middle of a digital transformation journey.”
“A lot has happened in Sandvik in terms of how we work digitally since I joined ten years ago... and we are still in the middle of a digital transformation journey.”
As novelties like AutoMine imply, this transformation is vividly apparent across Sandvik’s nearly two dozen business divisions. With technology an increasingly central part of the mining experience – the global digital mining sector is expected to enjoy a CAGR of over 13% through 2030 – it’s no wonder that Sandvik is getting involved too. Yet if the firm’s digital tentacles stretch from AI (supporting production optimisation) to the cloud (digitalising tool inventories), the back office has enjoyed a revamp too. By partnering with a Finnish fintech, for
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instance, Sandvik’s number counters can now automate their audit trail. By adopting Power PI by Microsoft, they can get to grips with mountains of data, just as well when Sandvik operates across some 150 countries.
None of this is accidental. As Felton says, technology is an “important enabler” for Sandvik’s finance function, particularly when it comes to informing business decisions. “It is also important that we automate our own processes to the extent possible,” the CFO continues, “so that we can spend our time on value-adding analysis.” That’s equally true given Sandvik’s unusual operating structure. An intensely decentralised company, each of Sandvik’s division presidents can run their businesses as they see fit. This hands-off approach can evidently offer advantages. Felton notes that independence allows executives to stick close to customer demands, a fact that may help explain the 16% revenue growth figures Sandvik lately posted. Not that this free-wheeling approach makes Felton’s job any easier. Given the sheer scale of Sandvik’s operations she warns that a “robust performance management system” is vital to ensuring this $16bn giant runs smoothly.
Going deep
How to balance Sandvik’s bewildering size with its spirit of independence? If technological wizardry provides something of an answer, it’s underpinned by a vigorous system of checks and balances – starting with Sandvik’s so-called financial scorecards. A set of financial KPIs, tracked monthly by Felton and her team, they’re restated for acquisitions and accounting changes to ensure they’re easily comparable. Mandatory for every Sandvik division, they allow Felton to evaluate progress consistently, especially as they equally encompass five- quarter rolling forecasts. That last innovation surely makes sense. As Felton puts it: “It is just as important to look at where we are heading as to what our performance has been in the past.”
World Mining Frontiers /
www.nsenergybusiness.com
Sandvik
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