The Client

The European arm of a major global Financial Services provider which conducts business in 35 countries and has over US$232 billion in assets.

Business Challenge

• Deliver a global finance solution that will enable the organisation to comply with Sarbanes Oxley disclosure and internal controls and procedures requirements.
• Reduce finance system technical support and maintenance costs.
• Implement a single global chart of accounts, accounting calendar and month end process across all business divisions
• Ensure all regional and national regulations and statutory reporting requirements are met.

This program of work involved a series of tightly controlled, interdependent projects. Any delay in one would have created a knock-on effect on all subsequent projects causing significant overspend. Each project involved a phased country roll to as many as 14 countries over a period of up to 12 months. Parts of the organisation were already using Oracle Financial Applications 11.0.3. The final solution was to be based on the Oracle E-business 11.5.10 software.

Solution

Beyond Systems consultants were engaged to provide Project Management , E-Business functional and technical implementation services. The team represented some of the most experienced Oracle E-business professionals available in Europe. The Beyond team were involved in a series of key projects within the overall program over the last three years, building a strong reputation within the client organisation by managing and co-coordinating activities to maximise productivity and keep to budgets and timescales. Over the course of the program the Beyond team have consistently worked in co-operation with client’s business representatives, US support & technical staff and indian development & configuration teams to develop internal skills and methods and minimise overall program costs. Due to the phased nature of the program thorough but efficient regression testing of the solution for those businesses already live was a critical factor in the success of the project, preventing problems from being introduced by later rollout efforts. The Beyond team’s positive adoption approach to gain early acceptance and prevent negative user response meant that each business was encouraged to appoint key representatives who were involved in all aspects of their own country project rollout.

Meeting the needs of the business

Beyond consultants were central to the planning, design and deployment of the solution; working consistently within designated timescales and budgeted costs. By providing acknowledged Oracle E-business experts and a strong project implementation framework the risks of failure, for what was considered by the business to be a high-risk program, were reduced significantly. An ability to operate at all levels of the organisation was also a major factor in the success of the project. By designing innovative solutions and gaining agreement and support for new working practices, the client employees were fully motivated to meet the challenging deadlines. The team was able to satisfy the corporate requirements for a simplified, consistent and timely finance solution whilst still meeting the local statutory and business requirements of each country. Beyond Systems consultancy services have been retained to continue to further improve the client’s global solutions.