A data asset to be built, a guarantee of corporate robustness.
Twenty years were enough to transform financial data into governed capital. Non-financial data is now following the same path, with twenty years of catching up to do.
Temps de lecture estimé : X min
This summer, my two partners (Fabien Hérelle and Sabine Lochmann) and I are publishing the thesis behind the creation of Harnest, the first ERP for non-financial data. This first article outlines our initial conviction. Fabien will then discuss the field analysis that confirmed it, followed by Sabine, who will explain the architecture we developed as a result.
Twenty years spent securing a single asset: financial data
For over twenty years, since my MBA at Dauphine-UQAM, I have been advising companies on strategic choices and leading transformation projects: deploying derivatives trading from the German stock exchange to the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges, creating a derivatives trading and clearing business between BNP Paribas CIB and the securities services division (now a European leader), opening a post-trade hub in Chennai for BP2S, the CIB 2014 strategic plan and its American-style "Originate-to-Distribute" model, and even introducing public cloud at BNP Paribas with Manaos in 2019.
What these projects have in common is not their sector, but their raw material: reliable data. None would have been possible without governed financial information (costs, margins, cash flow, return on investment). This requirement took twenty years to forge. It shaped organizations, standardized processes, and harmonized reference systems. ERPs became the common language, to the point where no serious company manages its performance using scattered spreadsheets anymore.
A second asset, still treated as a chore
In parallel, another category of information has become increasingly important for companies: value chains, dependencies, risks, commitments, emissions, governance, and adaptability. This data now carries weight in investment, financing, and insurance decisions, as well as in commercial relationships and strategic trade-offs.
And yet, it is still organized as a series of responses to be produced rather than as a data asset to be built. CSRD, VSME, and the ISSB or GRI standards have made this reality visible and urgent, but they are not the cause. They have merely highlighted a structural lag that was already there.
What we believe
Our conviction is simple: businesses are entering a new stage of development. After learning to govern their financial assets, they must now learn to govern a second type of asset: the one that describes their operations, trajectories, dependencies, commitments, and capacity to create long-term value.
We call it non-financial decision-making capital.
And we are convinced that it can be made visible, understood, and managed with the same rigor as financial performance; not as a compliance exercise, but as a strategic asset.
That is the entire purpose of an ERP : not to produce a report, but to govern a data asset over the long term.
This is the diagnosis that Fabien will detail in the next article.