Structuring growth in a transforming HR group – Interview with Cédric from Octime

How do you build sustainable growth while navigating an LBO, international expansion, and product diversification? That’s the challenge Octime - a provider of human resources (HR) and workforce management solutions - is tackling with the help of more potent financial steering.

We spoke with Cédric, the group’s Performance Director, to understand how Octime moved from manual KPI tracking to a culture of precise, clear, and shared performance management, with Fincome as a co-pilot for accuracy and clarity.

Octime: 25 years of expertise in workforce management

A longstanding player in the HR sector, Octime combines organic growth, targeted acquisitions, and internal transformation. To support this development, the company had to undergo a profound restructuring of its management processes, particularly in finance and performance functions.

An HR software provider with a European footprint

For 25 years, Octime has been supporting companies in the digital transformation of their HR operations. Their specialties include scheduling, time management, and shift replacements. The group serves both mid-sized companies with its leading software and SMEs via its turnkey solution Octime Expresso — to foster fairness, well-being at work, and enhance overall performance for clients.

Through acquisitions such as Grupo Spec in 2015, operating in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America; Staffelio for replacement management; and aTurnos in 2022 for constraint-based planning, the group has progressively expanded its platform and consolidated its international presence.

A growth strategy backed by strong operations

The group’s sixth LBO, completed in June 2024, marks a key milestone. It aims to strengthen Octime’s European foothold and increase investment in product development, particularly in AI applications for scheduling.

However, this growth momentum relies on a profound transformation: 

• restructuring the finance function;
• hiring a Group CFO;
• adopting new tools (such as ERP Akuiteo and Jira), and a complete overhaul of performance management.

Cédric’s role in the group’s transformation

As Performance Director since 2020, Cédric has played a key role in structuring the group’s financial and operational management. His mission is to support the various departments (services, sales, support) in implementing reliable, shared, and decision-useful performance indicators.

The challenge: moving past Excel and securing performance management

A clear before-and-after in the finance function

Before 2021, Octime had no structured management control. Analyses were done "the old-fashioned way", on Excel, with outdated dashboards, flat exports, and few consolidation tools. Cédric’s arrival marked a turning point: a complete process redesign, centralized billing, a dedicated ERP (Akuiteo), and the repatriation of previously outsourced reporting.

The company began building a management control function and modernizing its tool stack. Still, the processes remained time-consuming:

"I exported things, every month I made a status report, a snapshot, archived it and tried to rework it in Excel files," Cédric told us.

But as the group grew, expectations around key metrics also increased, especially from shareholders: detailed analysis of ARR movements, customer cohorts, churn tracking, LTV/CAC…

Direct consequences on strategy

The impact was real: difficulty analyzing average basket size, identifying underperformance, or measuring the effect of upsell.

“How a customer behaved over the contract duration, cohort-wise: we had no insight. The average basket size was hard to grasp, as was the customer acquisition cost — it was tricky to evaluate all that. (…) What we also lacked was information about upsells or downsales; we had trouble identifying them. Overall, we knew we had strong growth, but on a client-by-client basis or for deeper analysis, it was harder,” explains Cédric.

‍And beyond strategy, costly errors went unnoticed, such as clients who hadn’t been billed in two years.

The solution: unified, granular, and actionable steering with Fincome

To move beyond Excel’s limits and establish more reliable management, Octime sought a clear, quick-to-deploy tool tailored to the challenges of a software company.

A fast, autonomous onboarding

Octime discovered Fincome in March through a recommendation. The spark was immediate: ease of use, clarity of metrics… and above all, reliable SaaS steering without relying on an analyst or BI team.

Deployment was quick and effective:

• Retrieval of billing data, the primary data source.
• Integration of client segmentation by industry and size.
• Integration of the product catalog (SaaS, maintenance, hardware, etc.).
• Hands-on onboarding with initial advanced analyses.
  

"Everything runs through Excel, so it's very easy and very quick to integrate the data. It took maybe a month from start to go-live.”

Cédric also personally trained the controller in the Spanish business unit, noting how simple the tool is — no need for external training.

Immediate improvement in KPI visibility

The first benefit noted by Octime: data reliability. No more uncertainty around formulas or unnoticed errors.

Cédric also explained that visibility on KPIs was significantly improved: tracking CAC, LTV, upsell, downsell, and retention. Fincome quickly and easily provided a clear view of where the company was heading: “Now we have a real dashboard.”

Additionally, the tool enabled Octime to compare results year over year, identify drops in specific offerings, and gain a global view of the growth strategy.

Next steps: scaling usage and structuring long-term strategy

Convinced by the tool, Octime now plans to extend Fincome across the group, fully embedding it in its growth strategy.

Sharper budget forecasting

Octime plans to utilize Fincome to structure its budget trajectory for 2026–2028. The tool will help: fuel growth simulations, track goals, and justify performance gaps with unprecedented granularity.

“For me, the principle of Fincome is that it’s a very easy-to-use tool. You get your KPIs, you’re confident in them, and you can access them in two clicks. That’s really what brings me peace of mind. I’m sure of the indicators I look at or want to share with my CEO,” says Cédric. “It’s a simple tool that fully addresses our ARR monitoring needs and meets our investors’ demands.”

Fincome’s dashboard is now set to become a central part of budget processes and communication with management and shareholders. The tool lends real legitimacy to the presented data, explains ARR movements, and helps in understanding churn.

Gradual rollout across the group

While Fincome is already in use in France and its Spanish entity, Octime has a clear goal: expand it to the entire group (including aTurnos), even during upcoming M&A activities. The tool could even help audit potential acquisition targets more effectively.

“It’ll also help us, I think, understand a potential company we might acquire — provided they share billing data upfront. And also during post-acquisition integration, once acquired, we’ll more easily grasp their performance.”

Conclusion

Octime’s experience perfectly illustrates how a software vendor in transformation can move from manual Excel tracking to reliable, structured, and predictive KPI management, thanks to a tool that’s simple yet powerful.

In a context of European expansion, demanding LBO, and growth through M&A, Octime has been able to:

1. Secure ARR and churn tracking,
2. Get a sharper view of cohorts, upsell/downsell, and CAC,
3. Professionalize its revenue monitoring for business teams and investors,
4. Optimize future integration of acquired structures.

“It gives real legitimacy to the data we present and track.” — Cédric

For any sales-led or hybrid SaaS company with European ambitions, turning reliable data into strategic decision-making power is now a key factor in achieving success. By ensuring data reliability and increasing analytical precision, SaaS players can elevate their business to the next level.