Mazars: Transforming Belron with Asam Malik and Mike Fried
Mazars is a leading international audit, tax and consulting firm, with strong risk, compliance and digital transformational expertise. They have recently embarked on helping Belron, a vehicle glass repair and replacement company, undergo a holistic digital transformation. Although a company like Belron isn’t the first to come to mind when we think of such transformations, its foresight in doing so, with Mazars’ help, is exceptional.
Asam Malik, Partner, Technology & Digital Consulting practice in the UK, leads technology and digital practice for their clients in the region. His role entails helping clients leverage technology more effectively, and helping them manage their risks around technology.
“We really look at digital transformation in a holistic manner,” says Mike Fried, Partner, Technology & Digital Consulting practice in the US, “starting first with business transformation as the overarching foundation, and then digital technologies serving to enable and accelerate a company's business transformation efforts across people, process and technology solutions.”
‘Digital transformation’ has become a very hot topic over the past few years, and this has primarily been driven by COVID, in which every organisation suddenly found themselves needing to interact in a digital way, overnight. “And what we've seen is a huge uptick in clients wanting to suddenly implement technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and virtual reality,” says Malik.
He points out that the challenge has been implementing the technology in a way that adds value. “A lot of clients are doing it in a reactive way, and they are not thinking about the benefits. They are focusing instead on the need to acquire this technology, but not really considering how it's going to transform their organisation as well.”
Belron took such a holistic approach to their transformation programme, and they understood the need to have the right players in the team to help them drive their success. Belron has many effective collaborators across the globe as part of this effort, but they also understood the value in leveraging key trusted partners to augment their team and help them achieve their goals and objectives, which is why the Mazars-Belron relationship is one that is an asset to both parties.
In their approach, Mazars use a comprehensive business and digital transformation framework. “There really are six core layers to help clients achieve their transformation goals,” says Fried. “This includes strategising and developing their transformation roadmap. Transforming core business functions such as finance, sales and marketing, operations and supply chain IT and HR. Enabling the business through technology solutions. Enhancing decision making by leveraging data as a competitive advantage, and leading people through change. And, last but not least, protecting the business through risk and cyber security solutions.”
Malik says, “what we've seen at Belron that we haven't seen at other organisations is their appetite to transform up all levels. One of the challenges that Belron needs to focus on is, how they do this on a global scale and in a consistent way.”
“Belron is a valued partner and we really like their culture and core values,” says Fried. They live and breathe these values every day, and that's something we really feel we're aligned with in our foundational values, and in the Mazars way.
“So in the end, we really appreciate our long-term relationship with Belron and we believe it’s built on a foundation of trust. We also highly value our strategic and collaborative partnership, which we've been building upon together over the years.”
Read the Belron International Digital Report HERE.
