Giulio Maresca

The client, a global engineering company, went through various mergers, acquisitions, and reorganizations.  This had resulted in the need to manage a patchwork of financial business processes and approximately 200 systems within the existing information technology infrastructure. The present legacy financial system was antiquated and did not take advantage of the technology that is now available for real time collection of detailed data, drill down to transactions, and reporting capability. Therefore, we implemented Hyperion’s Financial Management (HFM) web-architected application.  The application was implemented to support the consolidation, external reporting, and managerial analysis functions of all the business units of the company.

Business Results

• Provide a solution for financial consolidations for both legal entity and management structures
• Standardize business processes and reports across the company
• Enable flexibility for change – reorganizations, mergers, acquisitions, and management changes
• Support compliance, Sarbanes/Oxley (SOX) and internal control requirements
• Enable the management team to provide consistent, timely, accurate and relevant financial information

The Management of the client, a world leader mining company, wanted to address challenges posed, facilitate strategy execution and create the infrastructure required to support growth objectives. As a result, the client identified the Close and Consolidate Books and Report Actuals  an immediate priority.  The recognized that this process had become overly complex and cumbersome especially because mergers and acquisitions had significantly changed the size and structure of the organization. In addition, the regulatory control procedures introduced by the Sarbenes-Oxley Act, needed to be supported  by a robust set of functionalities to allow full auditing of users’ interaction with the application.  Therefore, my team led the software selection and technical delivery of a complete financial reporting and statutory consolidation solution. The technical scope included the design/build/test of a packaged web-based financial consolidation application supported by Hyperion Financial Management. The application was distributed to more than 30 subsidiaries of the company and our team delivered UAT and end-user training.

Business Challenges

• Rapid grow by acquisition
• Integration of many different ERP systems
• Re-think and improve the closing process
• Streamline control activities to comply with regulatory rules
• Spreadsheet explosion for data-entry and reporting
• Too many top-side adjustments not aligned with source systems

Business Results

• HFM as the book of records that integrates un-related data sources
• Achieve “one version of the truth”
• Detailed monthly Management Report including Intercompany matching and adjustments out day 9
• Robust workflow process management that tracks every user’s activity during the closing process
• Excellent user’s interaction with the web-based interface for data submission, data validation and reporting.