PIC cuts a months-long budget cycle to two weeks across 68 departments.

The Public Investment Corporation is one of Africa’s largest institutional investment managers, operating on behalf of South Africa’s public sector entities. With a mandate that spans a broad and complex investment portfolio and a finance function serving 68 departments, PIC’s annual budget process carries real institutional weight. Getting it right, on time, and with full stakeholder visibility is not optional.

Until two years ago, that process was entirely manual. Budget preparation stretched across months, consuming the finance team and creating sustained pressure on stakeholder reporting timelines. Late nights became routine. The volume of coordination required across dozens of departments left little room for the kind of analysis and oversight the process actually demanded. “Things were manual,” says Sibusiso Nsuntsha, Senior Financial Accountant at PIC. “Processing was taking longer than expected, and that resulted in challenges with our stakeholders and reporting.”

“Our budget used to take months. With IDU, we were able to do the consultation and the full budget within two weeks, including reporting to the various committees. Without IDU, we would not have done it.”

— Mothusi Masemola, Financial Accountant, Public Investment Corporation

PIC was introduced to IDU and the transformation was swift. Manual processes were eliminated. The budget cycle that had previously consumed months was completed in two weeks, including consultation sessions with heads of department across all 68 divisions and reporting to the various committees. The late nights stopped.

A significant part of what made this possible was how IDU handles consolidation. Rather than manually aggregating figures across departments, the platform’s hierarchical structure means data flows automatically up through the organisation. “You capture for one department,” explains Mothusi Masemola, Financial Accountant at PIC. “Based on how you structure it, that department rolls up into a division, and that division rolls up to the entire entity, without you trying to do the pluses and minuses. It does it for you.” For a team coordinating 68 departments, removing that consolidation burden was a material change.

The controls built into the platform also addressed a risk that spreadsheet-based processes inherently carry. In Excel, figures can be changed without trace and formulas overwritten without warning. IDU removes that exposure. “You know that you can do what you need to do without worrying that things might change later without you actually knowing,” says Masemola. The audit trail and access controls that come standard with IDU gave the PIC finance team confidence their numbers could be trusted.

The user interface contributed its own efficiency gains. IDU’s dashboards allow users to slice and view data across different dimensions without complexity, and Nsuntsha notes that the platform is accessible even to first-time users. “Even if you see it for the first time, it’s so user-friendly that your first attempt on opening after you’ve logged in makes things simple and easy,” he says. “How you slice and dice different dashboards is not complex. You click, you select, and it displays exactly what you want to see.”

A partner in success

Geoff ten Oever, Account Manager at IDU, says: “PIC’s story is one we hear often: a finance team carrying a process that had outgrown the tools they had. Sibusiso and Mothusi moved fast and got real results. Cutting months to two weeks across 68 departments is a meaningful outcome, and we’re proud to have been part of making that happen.”

The IDU support experience has been a consistent theme in how the PIC team describes the relationship. From initial implementation through to ongoing use, they describe step-by-step guidance and sustained post-implementation follow-up. “The team is very supportive and accessible,” says Masemola. “They guide you initially, step by step, and there’s always post-sale support. They don’t give you the service and run away. They follow up all the way through.”

Two years in, the verdict from the PIC finance team is clear. A process that once took months now takes two weeks. Late nights are gone. Consolidation that once required manual effort across dozens of departments now happens automatically. And the team operates with the confidence that comes from working in a controlled, auditable environment rather than a network of shared spreadsheets. “At any given point in time, I would recommend the tool,” says Nsuntsha. “It’s one of the best.”

 “IDU changed our life. The manual processes were eliminated altogether and we started to enjoy the efficiencies and effectiveness of the platform. It’s one of the best decisions we’ve made.”

— Sibusiso Nsuntsha, Senior Financial Accountant, Public Investment Corporation