Adecco Group North America Uses TopDown Consulting to Implement Oracle Hyperion On Time, and on Budget ADECCO GROUP CASE STUDY
Adecco Group North America Uses TopDown Consulting to Implement Oracle Hyperion On Time, and on Budget Hyperion Evolution The company s North American subsidiary, comprising of about 8,000 employees, has undertaken a significant evolution in its use of Hyperion products since 2005. Initially, Adecco used Hyperion Enterprise 5.0 running on one server with 12 total users all with administrator privileges to manage P&L reporting. Next, in 2006, the company updated to Hyperion Enterprise 6.3.1 to handle expanded needs like B/S, supporting multiple divisions, providing access to more than 90 users, and budgeting and forecasting. Despite the upgrade, Adecco was still tied to a cumbersome data-gathering process that relied upon using Microsoft Excel. Collecting data was too time consuming, and if there was an error we d have to reload all the data, said Bill McGarry, Vice President of Financial Systems and ICOFR Compliance at Adecco Group North America. The end result was an Excel document with dozens of tabs that made data analysis very difficult. We decided to put an end to death by 1000 spreadsheets, and began the process of upgrading to Hyperion Planning 11.1.2.1. Selecting an EPM Implementation Partner When the upgrade project was approved in 2011, McGarry began looking for an implementation partner that could help the company make the transition to Hyperion Planning supporting both the technical side as well as providing the necessary training and internal process changes needed for Adecco s finance team to fully utilize the new software. In addition to replacing Hyperion Enterprise 6.3.1 with Hyperion Planning 11.1.2.1, the project requirements also included centralizing and automating the data collection process, multi-currency support and training on SmartView. About The Adecco Group The Adecco Group, based in Zurich, Switzerland, is the world s leading provider of HR solutions. With more than 33,000 FTE employees and over 5,500 branches, in over 60 countries and territories around the world, Adecco Group offers a wide variety of services, connecting over 700,000 associates with over 100,000 clients every day. The services offered fall into the broad categories of temporary staffing, permanent placement, career transition and talent development, as well as outsourcing and consulting. The Adecco Group is a Fortune Global 500 company. Adecco S.A. is registered in Switzerland (ISIN: CH0012138605) and listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (ADEN). Our RFP went out to four vendors, and we were immediately impressed with the response provided by TopDown Consulting. Using their strong command of this subject matter, and deep experience with Hyperion implementations, they were able to recommend alternate timing and phasing of the project that would lead to a successful outcome, said McGarry. In what would become a hallmark of the project, TopDown showed its ability to accurately assess our needs and identify the most efficient ways to meet those needs. TopDown Consulting 2
Working with TopDown Consulting The project began with a collaborative planning session in which the nine-month project was scheduled into three main phases. During the early stages of the project, any distinctions between the TopDown consultants and the Adecco team quickly went away. McGarry continued, TopDown quickly learned our working style and culture, and instead of being us and them, we became a unified team. The collaborative work style helped the team manage several challenges throughout the project. One issue was the limited access to executive stakeholders to review and sign off on progress at significant milestones. TopDown kept the project moving forward by reconfiguring the schedule and workload to focus on priorities whenever a bottleneck was encountered. The team also experienced some problems with an outsourced data center, which led to issues with the software installation. To counter this challenge, TopDown set up an offline development environment to continue with the design and build process. Technology aside, change management was also a significant part of the Adecco project. Despite the many downsides of the existing software and process, there was hesitancy among company stakeholders to give up a familiar system for something unknown. Again, TopDown s collaborative work style enabled them to successfully work through Adecco s change management challenges. Throughout the rollout process, key members of Adecco s financial systems team were always present during training sessions led by TopDown. This, paired with constant communication throughout the implementation about the system and its capabilities, established a strong core of knowledgeable advocates that could help the broader financial team quickly adopt Hyperion Planning. The internal advocates were so confident and knowledgeable about the system that they began running regular lunch and learn training sessions without any assistance from TopDown. TopDown Consulting used its expertise with Oracle Hyperion software and internal change management to deliver a successful deployment of Hyperion Planning to Adecco Group NA, on time and on budget. The project s successes include: Collaborative working environment and understanding of Adecco s company culture. Successfully worked around various technological and logistical challenges to keep meet all project milestones on deadline. Hyperion Planning has let the Adecco finance team focus on data analysis rather than on spending unnecessary cycles on data collection. SmartView is providing the executive team with easy access to data to help accelerate decisionmaking. TopDown Consulting 3
Planning delivers greater efficiency and accuracy to Adecco s reporting process Throughout the conversion to Hyperion Planning, TopDown successfully managed a variety of technology and process challenges, and still completed the project on time and on budget. TopDown also helped the members of Adecco s financial systems team become selfsufficient in working with the new software. As a result, the company has reduced its daily processing time significantly. They now can clear, load and aggregate info into the system in two hours down from three hours and only need to load the system once per day, instead of three times. Also, data is rapidly cleared in just three minutes, instead of in 45 minutes with the previous system. In addition to benefits in efficiency, Adecco now has greater visibility into its budgeting, forecasting and reporting process. SmartView has enabled adhoc reporting and has provided centralized access to data. Senior management can now easily review financial reports via 18 new dashboards, giving them insights into the company s data that they ve never had before, including: zoned view of regions, data by business line, gross margins, costs by function, and more. We ve raised the bar with this deployment, and now have a scalable solution that can be deployed with a snap of a finger, said McGarry. TopDown did an excellent job of maintaining the schedule, and at end of day, hit every single target end-date of each phase, and completed the entire project under budget. TopDown Consulting utilizes a solution-based approach while working with our clients instead of just focusing on the technology. We understand business processes and how technology can support and enhance those processes, said Juan Porter, founder of TopDown Consulting, and lead architect on the Adecco project. Our work with Adecco is a great example of how our tailored solutions meet our clients business needs, both from a technology standpoint and in accommodating their unique cultural requirements. This was a successful project because Adecco collaborated with us from day one, working alongside the TopDown team to learn the applications and become proficient in their use by the end of the implementation, said Beverly Sentell, manager at TopDown Consulting. TopDown Consulting 4
About TopDown Consulting Founded in 2000, TopDown Consulting is the acknowledged leader in designing, implementing, and deploying EPM solutions. TopDown has the experience, expertise, and proven approach to deliver successful implementations for Global 2000 clients. Our consultants average 20 years of Hyperion and industry experience with a complete range of skill sets, including: solution and system architects, CPAs, finance executives, MBAs, analysts, and project managers. TopDown s proven Project Success Methodology provides a customizable strategic framework for guiding and measuring project initiatives, enabling us to deliver solutions that meet our clients current and future business and technology needs and their unique corporate culture. TopDown Consulting, Inc. serves clients nationally and internationally from our San Francisco headquarters. For more information or to inquire about our services, please contact us. 530 Divisadero Street #310 San Francisco, CA 94117 Phone: (888) 644-8445 Phone: (617) 576-8445 info@topdownconsulting.com www.topdownconsulting.com 2012 TopDown Consulting Incorporated. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.TopDown Consulting, TopDown Consulting logo, and TopDown Consulting Migration Manager are trademarks or registered trademarks of TopDown Consulting in the United States. All other company and product names may be trade names or trademarks of their respective owners. TopDown Consulting 5