| About Us - Case Studies |
Automating Planning & Forecasting to Power Growth |
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The Challenge |
Fisker Automotive is a rapidly growing and American premium plug-in hybrid electric vehicle manufacturer founded in 2007 with a mission to redefine the luxury automobile with an unwavering dedication to sustainability
The Business Planning process is complex and was completely managed in Excel
The dynamic business environment, rapidly evolving requirements, complexity of building a modern global automotive company with leaderships needs for constant and accurate financial information required an initiative to automate their planning, forecasting and reporting
Fisker Automotive needed a solution that could meet the demands of investors and management for timely and predictable results
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Solution |
Fisker's management lead a strategic initiative to implement a scalable, automated Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) and planning system and selected SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation and Driver6 to lead this initiatie
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Benefits / Impact |
Designed and built a scalable solution to plan and forecast volume, revenue & cost, overhead, fixed assets, R&D, cash, working capital and debt
Provided the ability to produce accurate and timely P&L, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statements
Implemented an end-to-end solution that enabled a greater level of granularity allowing senior management and investors to better analyze business results and make key strategic decisions
Delivered both structure and flexibility to improve confidence in results and allow the business to dynamically evolve
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Globalizing, Unifying & Accelerating Consolidation |
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The Challenge |
Misaligned statutory and management consolidations for segment reporting and limited alignment to executive view of the business
Lengthy and manual monthly consolidation process
Limited global system controls over the monthly submission of financial information at both local and corporate levels
Numerous translation issues associated with acquisitions through the segreation and application of historical rates for newly acquired entities versus leacy entities
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Solution |
Automate consolidation activities in a single global process
Develop a unified global model of statutory and management consolidations for segment alignment, reporting and analysis
Deliver an automated process to manage translation issues associated with acquisitions throuh the segreation and application of historical rates for newly acquired entities
Enhance monthly reporting cycles by automating close processes to run consecutively during the monthly close process
Improve controls around key business dimensions such as, entities and periods, as well as key business activities like mergers and acquisitions
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Benefits / Impact |
Accelerated, automated and created a more trusted global monthly consolidation process that: 1) Increased productivity by reducing review time and manual journal entries, 2) Increased transparency by improving visibility across geographic and functional areas of the organization in a more timely manner, 3) manage integration issues associated with acquisitions, divestitures and business re-organization
Optimized and aligned business reporting processes that unifies legal entity and management financial information in a single solution that improves management decision making on a near real-time basis
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Regulatory Reporting with BusinessObjects Webi |
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The Challenge |
Astra Zeneca must disclose financial consideration given to physicians and other health care providers for services associated with marketing it's pharmaceutical products
The reporting requirements are driven from both federal and state governments and is demanding in both details and breadth of information needed for all regulatory agencies
The data warehouse solution was developed but needed internal and executive reporting to give senior management the ability to view the regulatory reporting data summarized along several dimensions (product, provider, market, etc)
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Solution |
Validated the data quality and model to ensure they met management's requirements for reporting & analysis and developed six executive reports and dashboards
Development and documentation standards were established to ensure consistency and facilitate future maintenance and enhancements
Mentoring approach was utilized to report development to ensure Astra Zeneca personnel have the skills to maintain and enhance the solution
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Benefits / Impact |
In addition to meeting regulatory reporting needs, executive leadership and management now have timely, accurate analysis of expenses to health care providers
The ability to analyze information multi-dimensionally, including provider, product, location and function
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Sales Rapid Mart Implementation |
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The Challenge |
Standard SAP ECC provides little 'out of the box' reporting and existing reports rely on ABAP programs to extract SAP ECC data into flat files. Files are then converted to Excel spreadsheets which are manually converted into reports. The process is time consuming, error prone, and inflexible.
HMI has grown rapidly through acquisition and has recently completed consolidation of all divisions onto SAP ECC from basic business processing, but reporting still differs in content, format, and preparation among individual divisions
HMI did not currently have experienced BI staff and needed a solution quickly.
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Solution |
SAP/BO Edge Bundle to provide BI infrastructure.
SAP Sales Rapid Mart to jump start reporting capabilities.
Mentoring approach to implementation to ensure HMI personnel have the skills to maintain and enhance the solution.
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Benefits / Impact |
BI infrastructure installed, configured, 2 years of data loaded and validated, core sales reports ready for implementation in 6 weeks.
Ability to do "Slice and Dice" analysis across sales territories, geographies, and regions.
HMI personnel have been able to effectively maintain the solution, have completed several new reports and are currently working to add additional data content.
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Business Intelligence Development & Implementation |
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The Challenge |
Return the Business Intelligence (BI) component of the Vision to Profitability project including development, testing and implementation back on schedule (V2P valued at over $500M).
Quickly bring an extensive knowledge of Business Intelligence, ECC, NetWeaver/BW and finance expertise (including International Tax) on to the project in weeks.
With extensive use of contractors at multiple levels, a disconnect existed between cross-functional team status, contractor effectiveness and work stream alignment.
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Solution |
Implemented Project Management Office to link development and functional teams as well as contractors and work stream managers.
Formed a 25 person development team in under three weeks. Team members included ECC, BEx, Business Objects, NetWeaver/BW and PMO skills.
Developed a shared “risk-return” model with the client to assure all stakeholders of our desire and ability to deliver.
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Benefits / Impact |
Returned the project to an on-time implementation.
Successfully developed, tested and put into production 39 critical reports including over 25 OLAP cubes.
Implemented a PMO Office and a four consecutive work stream organization to allow an on-time implementation.
Successfully contributed to the client’s ability to process tax savings for an estimated $500M improvement.
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Migration of SAP BusinessObjects Financial Consolidation |
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The Challenge |
Sun was on an unsupported version of SAP BusinessObjects Financial Consolidation (BFC) and they needed to migrate to the latest version and wanted to take advantage new features and finance process improvements.
They needed to quickly bring in extensive knowledge of Finance, SAP BFC and a rapid migration approach that provided a quick migration, fit into their closing cycles and limited down time.
Looking for a partner could additionally identify other close issues, how to resolve them and a roadmap for further improvement.
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Solution |
An onsite assessment was used to identify scope based on the complexity of the BFC application(s) and desired enhancements, to build a detailed plan and align Finance’s calendar to the migration, minimizing impact and down time.
Driver6 leveraged a model that used offshore (France) resources for the technical migration and onshore resources to partner with the Finance & IT team to ensure migration, testing and go live met both the defined timelines and budgets.
Jointly delivered an upgraded application able to meet Sun’s growing responsibilities and as a platform to implement additional best practices and technology improvements in Finance.
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Benefits / Impact |
Successfully migrated, tested and put into production BFC, on time and on budget
Shortened cycle times and improved the overall performance of BFC driving direct positive impacts to Finance’s ability to close more efficiently.
Allowed Sun to identify and target other close barriers around data integration and intercompany and the ability to drive solutions to these other challenges.
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Driving a Finance Transformation & Shared Services Strategy |
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The Challenge |
All planning, consolidation and reporting done in a combination of tools, databases and applications requiring complicated manual process.
Over 62 data sources and 100,000 hours of time to support & run the finance processes leaving little time for analysis or process improvement.
Finance leadership recognized the need for a finance transformation to drive improvement of the core Finance processes, “plan the way they run the business” and standardization on a set of core applications for an integrated Financial and operational view of the business.
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Solution |
Business unit planning models (“Plan the Way We Run the Business”) for Gross Profit/Sales Planning, Rolling Forecast and Manufacturing Planning.
Closed-Loop Actuals & Plans (Automation & Optimization of Core Finance Processes) including Legal, Management and Budget Consolidations.
Shared Services Platform (ensure consistency & efficiency) with consistent business dimensions for all of finance and a single data source for all business, reporting & analytics.
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Benefits / Impact |
Drive time & cost savings through removal of manual and solution maintenance times.
Single Version of the Truth providing better quality and trust in the numbers through reduced touch points, integration points and human errors.
Quick time to value, positively impacting the business while simultaneously driving down TCO.
Accelerate the Shared Services strategy ensuring efficiency, effectiveness & consistency.
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Automating & Accelerating the Consolidation Process |
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The Challenge |
EasyLink Services growth thru strategic acquisitions has driven complexities and exposed issues in current Financial processes.
Legal and Management Consolidation process was kept through a manual and labor intensive Excel model.
Manual currency conversion process with limited ability for currency analysis and react to the market.
Multiple ERP instances led to master data inconsistencies and made reporting results complex and time consuming.
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Solution |
EasyLink Services management team sought to find a trusted partner that could help them achieve sustained value from its performance management investments, by delivering strategic insight, relevant recommendations and tactical delivery capabilities.
They also desired improved decision making by streamlining key financial reporting and management consolidation activities.
SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation and Driver6 were selected to lead this initiative and achieve their objectives.
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Benefits / Impact |
Utilized a client involvement model leading to reduced implementation costs and shorter implementation cycle.
Harmonized the master data in BPC leading to enable rapid loading and consolidation of monthly actual results.
Shortened the month-end closing time allowing for faster, more accurate results.
Able to deliver financial results in a timely manner allowing senior management to analyze results and react more quickly to business conditions.
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