Giulio Maresca

The client, a regional utility company,  was undergoing a financial transformation program that included the redesign of the reporting architecture.  My team led the analysis and conceptual design of the reporting architecture which included the definition of a financial data mart to collect in one place all financial information for reporting, and the definition of multiple Hyperion Essbase cubes to manage the reporting of different areas of the business.

This project was a global initiative to bring together the diverse companies and operating units created through the merger.  The new reporting and planning system consolidated company-wide financial information and key performance indicators (KPIs).  The system allows the client to have a global, regional, company or business unit view of their financial status at any point in time.  Running the business as one global integrated company is extremely challenging given the IT infrastructure and business processes inherited from two very different historical companies. My team led the design, implementation and testing of the global planning and budgeting system.  This system was deployed worldwide to 300 locations.  We also delivered end-user training and UAT to more than 80 stakeholders.  The application was implemented with Hyperion Essbase and a web-based front-end.

Business Results

• Provided for a single repository of financial planning data
• Provided for consistency in language, data, etc.
• Linked plan to business strategy to achieve financial goals
• Increased ability to react to changes in the current business environment
• Provided for better decision making as a result of better, more frequent information
• Provided information for management to become more forward-looking and able to anticipate change
• Helped to reduce close cycle time and number of forecasting iterations

This national health insurance company was in the process of implementing Adaytum e.Planning to manage the budgeting and forecasting process. Adaytum helped automating and streamlining the budgeting and forecasting processes, but lacked reporting functionalists that the client needed for its internal reporting. Therefore, our team analyzed the company reporting needs and proposed to implement Hyperion Essbase and its reporting tools to standardize the reporting of actuals, budget and forecast information.

My team assisted a national insurance company’s finance organization to evaluate and improve its financial planning and performance management capabilities. The initial phase of this effort involved close cooperation with the P&C, Life, and Corporate controllers to:

• Review client’s KPIs/drivers to-date and recommend enhancements
• Assist with design of interim non-automated Executive Dashboard report
• Develop design & business case for automated dashboard tool
• Create an online prototype to illustrate dashboard design
• Review current planning & forecasting process and identify quick hits
• Develop high-level design of planning & forecasting (P&F) process

We developed a sophisticated Hyperion Essbase prototype that led to the following results:

• Assessed tools and technical options for implementing a production solution
• Designed, developed, and tested web-based dashboard for displaying key metrics
• Prepared proof of concept for executive presentation

Our client was undergoing a major finance transformation program including re-engineering all back-office processes and technology.  As part of this program, the client wanted to select the next generation technology to manage internal and external reporting as well as planning and budgeting processes.  The project had a large number of stakeholder organizations that needed to be involved in the selection process.  I managed a team of consultants that assisted the client with selecting the IT solution.  We prepared vendor RFP, proof of concepts and conference room pilot to facilitate the selection of the software.  The result was a comprehensive presentation of software selection process and the winning vendor.