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Henniges previously used Hyperion Enterprise as a consolidation tool and Hyperion Retrieve for reporting. They also used a home-grown SQL Database for all data loading, integration, and mapping activities. The company wanted a unified solution for all their financial consolidation and reporting, forecasting, and analysis — all maintainable by the same staff that maintained Hyperion Enterprise.

Lonrho lacked a reliable and consistent corporate performance management (CPM) solution that was easy to use and maintain. The private equity firm was using Oracle Hyperion Enterprise and Hyperion Planning systems, which were no longer being supported and were too costly to manage. For Lonrho, Hyperion Enterprise was an unstable system that needed immediate replacing. Financial consolidation processes were very time-consuming and inefficient, and they also lacked true data integration. The legacy systems could no longer meet Lonrho’s basic operational needs, leaving the finance team no choice but to search for a more cost-effective and powerful CPM solution. Lonrho needed one unified platform for financial reporting, consolidation, forecasting, and analysis that could effectively run with their larger corporate initiative and dramatically bring down their total cost of ownership.

Speed, flexibility, and accuracy are crucial elements for financial consolidation and management reporting in any organization — especially large enterprises like the Royal Terberg Group. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the Royal Terberg Group was looking for an integrated corporate performance management (CPM) system to improve consolidation, reporting, budgeting, and forecasting across 39 operating locations. Excel® required too many manual consolidation steps, and their IBM Cognos system was cumbersome, which in turn created a lengthy and inefficient process. As Terberg continued to grow organically and through acquisitions, they knew it was time to look for a replacement.

Cleaver-Brooks manufactures multiple distinctive product types that each require unique accounting, budgeting, and reporting needs. With operating facilities located across the US, Canada, and Mexico, their financial close process for reporting, budgeting, and analysis was painstakingly slow and needed improvement. Cleaver-Brooks was using IBM Cognos for their corporate performance management (CPM) needs. They had the right formulas built-in to the system, yet still too much time was spent ensuring their finance team had the most up-to-date and accurate data. There was not enough time left to spend dissecting what the data was telling about the business. This was particularly problematic for planning and budgeting, as the process was cumbersome and time-consuming. Cleaver-Brooks needed a solution that could streamline their financial processes and provide better data integrity and visibility.

Curtis Instruments had been using Hyperion Enterprise and Excel® spreadsheets for financial consolidation, reporting, and budgeting. These tools had limitations that resulted in manual steps for processes such as intercompany eliminations, data quality and verification issues, many top-side adjustments, and too much exposure to errors and risk. The overall close and consolidation process took too long. After upgrading their Syteline ERP system in 2012, the Finance team at Curtis began looking for a replacement for Hyperion Enterprise, which was no longer providing adequate information for management.

Dril-Quip previously used Microsoft Excel® spreadsheets for their month-end close process, which created inconsistencies in data collection and a lengthy, inefficient close process. The visibility senior management had within geographic segments was limited, affecting strategic decision-making. Budgeting and forecasting were also done in Excel® using a top-down approach, leading to disjointed drivers and versioning. The company needed a unified and streamlined solution for financial consolidations, internal and external reporting, forecasting, and analysis that could be easily maintained and deliver accurate reporting. Strengthening internal controls over financial reporting was also a priority.

Frank’s International was using legacy systems for financial reporting and budgeting. The solution was not designed to handle financial consolidations, currency translation, or complex ownership structures. So, there were a lot of manual steps involved in the process leading to inefficiencies. The data warehouse system was bogged down by complex data transformations, with no data validation rules. Planning was being done directly in the ledger, and ad hoc reporting was very limited. Having recently completed an IPO, the company realized it needed to reduce risk and implement new processes and systems, so in 2016 they began evaluating corporate performance management (CPM) solutions.

ITG was using Oracle Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) and Financial Data Quality Management (FDM) for financial consolidation and reporting but was outgrowing the capabilities of these products. The system was becoming unstable due to infrastructure issues, causing downtime during critical periods. Upgrades had become painful and costly. Complex allocations had to be done outside the system and were difficult to support, and the system lacked the agility needed to respond to ongoing changes in the business. An impending software and hardware upgrade caused the ITG Finance team to evaluate their options.

The Larry H. Miller Group (LHM) was using Oracle Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) and Financial Data Quality Management (FDM) to manage their financial close, consolidation, and reporting process. With Oracle announcing the end of full support for the version they were running on, LHM faced a critical decision: upgrade their existing solutions or migrate to a new cloud-based solution. Key drivers for considering a cloud solution included the impending end of life for HFM, the ability to offload database administration and other IT tasks to a third party, and the declining quality of Oracle support.

Terex was using Oracle Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) and Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management (FDM) for financial consolidation, close, high-level budgeting, and reporting. For detailed budgets, they relied on several point solutions such as Prophix for one of their segments and Excel for others. They faced a major and costly upgrade of their HFM and FDM applications and realized there would be a lot of data migrations required to keep HFM and EPBCS in sync. Terex began evaluating OneStream as a unified solution for financial consolidation, close, reporting, and all their planning needs. They saw an opportunity to start fresh with a single solution for both actuals reporting and planning, with enough detail to accommodate both processes in a single system. OneStream’s platform could eliminate painful data administration performed by the FP&A team, and its Extensible Dimensionality® would allow for the elimination of Prophix, which was used for line-of-business planning. Additionally, OneStream offered a robust technology solution built on a 64-bit architecture, with multi-threading of calculations, and the ability to be deployed via the Microsoft Azure cloud. Terex found OneStream’s customer references to be enthusiastic and 100% positive, which firmed up their decision to move to OneStream’s unified platform.

Having been spun out of ITT in 2011, and as the result of several acquisitions, Xylem was using several Oracle Hyperion EPM applications to support their financial close, reporting and planning processes. This included three Oracle Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) applications, three Hyperion Planning applications, and instances of both Oracle Hyperion FDM and FDMEE. Each of these systems contained different levels of detail required to support corporate vs. line of business reporting and planning requirements. With over 500 users across divisions and locations, it was a very fragmented and complex process to load, adjust, and report data with multiple applications and offline Excel® models in the mix. The Xylem team initially considered upgrading and re-designing their on-premise Hyperion applications, but the effort and expected price tag of over $1M caused them to consider alternative solutions. Finit Solutions then introduced Xylem to OneStream. After several demos, many positive reference calls, and a visit to OneStream’s Splash user conference – the team was convinced that OneStream’s unified CPM platform and MarketPlace solutions could meet their current and future needs. An ROI analysis projecting a lower cost of ownership for OneStream vs. the Hyperion suite also firmed up their decision to make the leap to OneStream.

Having grown in size and complexity through organic growth and acquisitions, Fruit of the Loom was using Oracle Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) for financial consolidation and reporting. However, after three years of usage, the Finance team was having compatibility and support issues with HFM and was facing a costly upgrade. Lack of satisfaction with the product, including downtime during critical processes, and support issues caused Fruit of the Loom to evaluate their alternatives, and they selected OneStream.

Flow Traders, a rapidly growing principal trading firm, faced significant challenges in managing their financial consolidation and reporting processes. The company, which went public in 2015, needed to address the increasing complexity and frequency of financial reporting to stakeholders. The reliance on Excel® for these tasks led to errors and inefficiencies, especially as the finance team expanded. The primary objective was to eliminate the use of Excel® and transition to a more reliable and unified source of truth for financial data. This shift was essential to support the company's growth and ensure accurate, timely reporting.

Hunkemöller was using Hyperion Enterprise for their corporate performance management (CPM) needs, but the system was outdated and no longer supported. The legacy product could not fulfill Hunkemöller’s demands as the lingerie brand was growing at an exponential rate. Hunkemöller needed a modern CPM platform that could streamline reporting processes and provide quick and easy access to individual store data. The old system was end-of-life, kept crashing, and wasn't meeting their information needs. They needed a solution that would enable them to respond quickly to critical business data.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, Herbalife Nutrition operates in ninety countries and had multiple legacy CPM products in place including Oracle Hyperion (HFM), Planning, FDM, Essbase and EPMA. Managing data across several applications, the Company had a very manual Excel-based process for modeling and reporting. “We were integrating from many different applications, including Oracle ERP to multiple Oracle Hyperion applications, yet they were all behaving independently,” said Vanita Thornton, Sr. Director Global Operational Accounting and Financial Systems at Herbalife Nutrition. These legacy systems were limited by dimensionality which hindered the Company’s ability to report on project-level detail. It was time for the Company to make a choice—take on a major upgrade, move to the cloud, or start looking at alternative solutions. Seeking to learn more about Oracle’s product roadmap, Herbalife Nutrition was ready to explore the market. OneStream was ultimately selected because it best complimented the Company’s system requirements to have all solutions in one product.

Lucy Group had been using Oracle Hyperion Enterprise for financial consolidations, budgeting, planning, and reporting. The organization faced complications due to its operations across multiple overseas locations, relying on several point solutions across its four business units. The finance team was challenged with manually integrating data from multiple GL and ERP applications, including Dynamics AX and Sage. After 10 years of using Hyperion Enterprise, Lucy Group struggled with product limitations and a lack of visibility into the financial breakdown of business segments. They needed a more efficient solution to meet management demands for greater insights into financial data.

Reunert Limited faced significant challenges with their outdated SAP BPC system, which was costly to maintain and unable to meet the evolving business needs without a major upgrade. The finance team relied heavily on Excel for financial and management reporting, and the system lacked sub-consolidation capabilities. Intercompany transactions took two weeks to reconcile at year-end, and the system required extensive manual work for half-year financials and segment reporting. Upgrading SAP BPC was estimated to cost $4M USD and take up to three years, prompting Reunert to seek alternatives.

Creating innovative renewables, Renewi is the leading waste-to-product organization in the Benelux. With more than 7,000 employees, Renewi operates through five business units in their organizational structure. Formed from the result of a merger, Renewi was faced with the challenge of integrating two sets of reporting processes and two legacy CPM systems: Infor PM10 and Longview. With six main data sources, including Exact, JD Edwards, Metacom, Agresso, Navision, Pegasus and Excel®, Renewi was spending too much time manually managing data. The company was in urgent need of a solid tool to streamline statutory and management reporting. “Our CPM systems and processes were not fit for the future — both were dated, cumbersome and inefficient,” said John Wiericx, Reporting Manager Benelux at Renewi. “Creating full consolidated group numbers was a very manual process, and we had limited support for budgets and forecasts and analysis.”

With processing centers strategically located across six continents, Prince was growing at an exponential rate. Over the last 13 years, they have had 18 acquisitions and today are managing over 25 entities, with more than half outside of North America. There are multiple ERP systems in use across the enterprise, including IFS, Ross, and SAP. To make matters worse, they were relying on Excel to reconcile, translate, consolidate, and report financial information. This led to a general lack of controls, versioning, and audit trails, making it difficult to integrate newly acquired companies into the process. Currency translation was challenging, and there were several issues with data quality. Manual adjustments and the timeliness of data were constant concerns.

As a spin-out of Ashland Corporation with multiple instances of SAP GL/ERPs, Solenis was using an SAP GL and Excel for financial consolidation and reporting. Joining the organization as Assistant Controller in December of 2014, and with a $2B acquisition to integrate and new debt to manage, Jordan Brackett and his Controller at the time Rick Oswald, had to build a controller function from scratch. This meant creating a financial consolidation and reporting process and getting a new system in place. Fidato Partners was helping Solenis with their finance processes and introduced the team to OneStream as a platform that could be run by finance with limited IT support. Brackett and the team trusted Fidato and decided to implement OneStream without looking at any other options. And their decision turned out to be a good one.

A thriving global organization, Royo Group has expanded in recent years, both organically and through acquisitions. Having inherited multiple non-unified information systems, Royo Group has seen a dramatic increase in the complexity of their financial reporting and planning processes. Their reliance on Excel® spreadsheets and legacy systems for consolidation, planning and reporting made it difficult to obtain information on demand from each of their entities. There was also a significant need to implement a more detailed and connected planning process. Working through hundreds of spreadsheets required a lot of employee time and dedicated attention. Making a change to annual budget involved excessive manual effort and was subject to errors that were difficult to locate and manage. Royo Group needed digital transformation in the Finance Department to support financial close, reporting and planning processes with improved insight across multiple locations. By implementing a unified platform that provided immediate access to relevant information, employees across each entity could dedicate more time to value-added tasks. Simply put, Royo Group needed a solution that would give them more control over their subsidiaries, present and future.

Van Oord operates with a complex structure that is constantly changing and increasingly disruptive. With a finance staff of around 250 people, 200 reporting entities, and averaging 300 active projects across more than 50 countries, the sheer volume of data to manage was a challenge. On top of that, Van Oord deals with various local statutory, fiscal, and reporting regulations. Van Oord’s CPM landscape consisted of Infor MPC for consolidation and Microsoft Excel for data processing, project cost control, and reporting. The result was duplicate data entries and required manual eliminations. Van Oord was operating with multiple versions of the truth. Reconciliation and data quality issues were ending up at business unit and group level for further investigation and solving. Equipment and project specifications were entered as free text, making aggregation and ‘slice and dice’ very difficult. Van Oord wants to transform its finance function to become more lean, agile, and future-proof to adapt to the constantly changing environment. They needed a solution that would easily integrate financial accounting, project cost control, project reporting, and equipment reporting into a single, unified platform.

West Bend Mutual Insurance (WBMI) previously used Microsoft Excel® spreadsheets as a data collection and reporting tool for their month-end close process. Allocations were performed in a different software tool that had size processing constraints. Inconsistencies in data collection via Excel® spreadsheets created a labor-intensive and error-prone close process. Further, the transparency by operations to financial detail was limited. A key motivation for system implementation was the lack of transparency and performance consistency of their multi-tier allocation process of expenses to profit center, product and state reporting. The company required a unified and streamlined solution for all their financial close, internal and external reporting, including allocations and analysis. One that is easily maintained, with the ability to report profit center, product, and state level results with consistency and accuracy. The company also required a strong internal control process over financial reporting and account reconciliations.

Valeo Foods Group had grown significantly through acquisitions, yet was still using Excel® for its monthly close and consolidation process. All the local operating entities reported their data from different source systems in Excel® sheets. These sheets were then emailed to the Group Finance team to collate both management and statutory information in Excel®. This included consolidations for foreign currency translations, which was becoming more difficult as the group expanded into new geographies with different reporting currencies. The manual nature of the consolidation process presented challenges in calculating these scenarios. On top of this, as each financial year passed, the Excel® consolidated model continued to get larger with increased complexity and was becoming unsustainable. Both management and statutory reporting was completed in Excel® and was becoming increasingly cumbersome and prone to error. “We then started the search for a sustainable tool to enable the way forward,” says Dónal Staunton of Valeo Foods, Group Finance. “We needed to safeguard the creation of financial and management reports with a modern solution offering the agility to support future growth.”

TSG Group faced significant challenges in managing multiple finance systems across 30 countries. The existing systems, including SAP Business Objects Financials Consolidation (BOFC) and Hyperion Essbase, caused data latency and synchronization issues, with delays over two hours. Additionally, the need to work through a third party for external service support added to the lag times. The group required a single CPM environment for both external and management reporting, and a single provider to support the system.

INW Manufacturing faced significant challenges due to its rapid growth through acquisitions and organic expansion. The company operated with over 1,000 employees across multiple facilities, each with different ERP systems, networks, and firewalls. This complexity made consolidated reporting and intercompany activity management extremely difficult. The CFO, Melissa Carter, managed budgets manually using Excel, which was time-consuming and inefficient. The need for a robust consolidation tool became evident as the company struggled to keep up with the pace of acquisitions and the increasing complexity of its operations.

The bank faced several challenges in their reporting process, primarily due to the manual creation, distribution, and consolidation of Excel templates. These templates were sent via email to multiple business groups for data collection, leading to issues with version control and the potential loss of important information. The daily exchange of dozens of emails made it difficult to track the status of each task without constant communication through emails and phone calls with contributors, approvers, and reviewers. Additionally, the lack of a formal workflow and audit trail made it challenging to determine where changes had been made to spreadsheets without manually comparing versions or waiting for user responses.

The client, a regional bank in the United States, faced significant challenges with their budgeting process. The Finance team controlled all data through an Access database and generated Excel files that were emailed to every branch. Hundreds of users across dozens of branches would fill in the budget templates and email them back to the Finance team. This process was fraught with inefficiencies and risks. The uncontrolled nature of the templates meant users could make unauthorized changes to data, compromising the budget’s integrity. Errors could only be identified through manual review, which was time-consuming and prone to mistakes. The Finance team had to copy and paste received data into the Access database over several days, drawing out the budgeting process and increasing the risk of error.

A large bank was collecting and managing DFAST-related data from multiple sources using uncontrolled Excel spreadsheets before manually aggregating all received data. The collection of uncontrolled spreadsheets through email proved extremely challenging. It was virtually impossible to confirm the accuracy of the data because any user could add, delete or alter spreadsheets. Files were stored in a bulky, multi-tab workbook that was at risk of becoming too large and complex to function. Otherwise, files were stored in locked-down shared drives. The bank needed a solution to streamline the collection and analysis of DFAST data, ensure data accuracy, and comply with regulatory requirements.

The Finance team faced several challenges in their forecasting process. They had to manually create, distribute, collect, and consolidate hundreds of forecast templates through email, leading to issues with email overload and version control. The team had no control over or insight into the status of forecasting tasks, and each task needed management approval. If tasks weren't approved in time, they might not have been included in the forecast. Additionally, the Finance team often lacked the time to forecast smaller projects, potentially affecting shareholders' and customers' confidence in the company.