Name: The First 100 Days Implementing Oracle EPM to Drive Immediate Value
Uploaded: 2025-07-30T19:01:26.330Z
Duration: 30 min 16 s
Description: The First 100 Days Implementing Oracle EPM to Drive Immediate Value

Transcript for "The First 100 Days Implementing Oracle EPM to Drive Immediate Value": Well, good afternoon, everyone. Good morning wherever you might be sitting today. We thank you for joining us for today's session, the first hundred days. And what do you do after implementing Oracle EPM to drive immediate value? I think we're having a little technical difficulty. Our co speaker here may have lost his connection, so give us one minute while we try to get him reconnected. Alright. You there, Nick? I'm here. My camera is not working. I'm trying to get it up. Alright. Well, while you while you work on that, we will do a little housekeeping. These technical issues happen. Usually, it's a Monday or Friday, but it is Wednesday, hump day. So you never know when the the gremlins are gonna come out and get you. So welcome everybody, as I said. We do have a a q and a box over in your right hand corner. Feel free to drop some questions in there. Colleague of ours, Ronan Collins, will be monitoring your questions and, providing answers to them. Closed caption is also available for you as well. And so if you can't listen to the audio and want to have closed captions turned on, That button is at the bottom of your screen, and you can enable that. To access today's resource material, just simply select the docs tab. On the right hand side of your screen, you'll be able to access that as well. And then also, this is being recorded and will be sent out to all of you kind registrants with a link, and a recording to this webinar, will be accessible through that link. So thank you again for joining real quick. We are going to just do a little bit of introductions. My name is John Shaposka. This is the third of our, series here of this week in EPM. I'm a director of solutions in the EPM practice at Argano. I've been here about eight years. I'm a big baseball fan, and we based this, webinar series off of the old TV show on Saturday mornings. This week in baseball, as you can tell with baseball theme in the background. And I'm an EPM fanatic. Love the business process, came from FP and A and, public accounting, got into private equity world where I met, I didn't meet Nick. I will tell our story in a little bit here. But, Nick and I had a chance to work together about a decade ago, and we were able to put in a consolidations tool, an Oracle consolidations tool. And, so I'm a big EPM fan, a baseball fan, and have been an Argonaut for, the past eight years. We also have Nick Lovick here, who's the the VP of finance at at, Vibrantz, Technologies. And Nick and I, big fit have been friends for a while. We actually played baseball together back in college and have known each other for many years and got to work together. So, Nick, if you wouldn't mind, give us a quick introduction about yourself. Yeah. Sure. Played baseball together, but it feels like, feels like just yesterday, but maybe it was, like, what, twenty years ago. Anyhow, yeah. Nick Lovick, VP Finance, Vibrantz Technologies. We're based out of Mayfield, which is around the Cleveland area, Cleveland, Ohio. I was I've been with Vibrantz slash, legacy Chromaflo Technologies. We did a three company merger about, three years ago. So it used to be called Chromaflo Technologies, but same same company for thirteen years now. Came up through actually started there out of college, came up through AR cash application treasury, kind of the general accountant, moved into reporting manager, global reporting manager. That's when John and I implemented, the consolidation tool, which helped us tremendously. Obviously, we'll talk about here. Thereafter, moved in. We did many we were private equity owned, so many, many, acquisitions and bolt ons with but, obviously, systems help us out with that. So after that, I was global controller, set in that role for about, four years at at Chromaflo Technologies Vibrantz, and then now VP finance for for a business unit called Color Solutions, which, is about a third of total Vibrantz. So, yeah, did many many acquisitions, been in the PE world for, thirteen years now. So sort of a as many folks maybe on this phone or on this call can, attest to that's a bit of a fast paced environment. Many integrations, acquisitions, couple sales side due diligence, some buy side due diligence. So, it's been a a thirteen years, but maybe, feels a bit longer than that. Flies by when you're having fun. That's for sure. So a little bit about Argano. The Argano business unit's been around for twenty five years. We cover everything from the ERP to EPM, which we're talking about today, to human capital management, HCM, and, CX as well. We are very proud about, a number of things. But one of one of those, KPIs that we're proud about is on the left hand side in the middle there, the average net promoter score. If you're not familiar with this, this is a score that goes from negative negative 50 to a 100. And what this score really tells us is how likely your you are to come back to us. And so if you think about if you're a coffee fan, the the customers who are Starbucks fanatics, right, those Starbucks people are there every morning, you know, multiple days a week. And Starbucks kinda lands where around the mid to mid eighties to the nineties here. And so what this is telling us is that our customers keep coming back to us. And we have a customer first mentality. We are going to do what's what's right by our customers, and it's it's proven itself to be successful with, our projects and with our customer relationships. And so we're very proud of that. In terms of our EPM practice, we're also proud of last year's award. As you may or may not be aware of, Oracle gives partner of the year awards in EPM and analytics. Our EPM practice has also been around for twenty five years. It started with the s based products, moved into the, Hyperion products. And in 02/2014, we went all in in the cloud. Since 02/2014, so just over a decade, we've won six partner of the year awards. So it's about two, little bit more than two, awards, for an award every other year. So last year was our most recent one where, we set out to bring customer to the cloud, and our groovy work there was pretty groovy. It was so groovy that it won us this award, and, we were we were extremely proud of that work. The efficiency, the automation, the time saved through that efficiency, brought our customer a tremendous dollar value savings in their business processes, and that that, work, was proven to be valuable in this award here. So very proud of that. So let's let's kinda jump into our our q and a, Nick. First hundred days is, you know, everyone here is kind of kinda interested. You know, we we did implement consolidations in the the Oracle EPM space. And so, you know, what that means is, you know, taking your actual data in general ledgers for all of our entities and and rolling it up, doing the intercompany eliminations, the the complex or complex currency translations for your income statement, balance sheet, cash flow. And, typically, that result you know, typically, that involves hands around the world. Right? Businesses today, including the one that we we came from, one that you're still at, had controllers in different regions in in Europe, EMEA, in Asia Pacific, obviously, The Americas, North And South America. And you take these these individuals and there's an aspect that they're all used to doing their jobs. And then all of a sudden, one day, they have a tool that's going to do it for them, and we need to think about the change. So when we set out to bring in this consolidation and close, let's just talk a little bit about how that change was approached, you know, pre project. I think we approached it right when we were in Australia. We had a global meeting, and then how it it was really rolled out. You know, can you could you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. I think you're right. I think we have to go to the beginning. So 2012 was was really the start of Chromaflo Technologies, which was a merger between two companies, to really start Chromaflo Technologies. So from before that, the the parent company was a sole entity, one site, about 60,000,000 revenue, you know, doing one ERP, obviously, and then we became a global company overnight. So those first two years from '12 to '14, right around '14 when we started the implementation, I mean, we're we were dealing with how many different ERP systems, doing consolidations in Excel. I think we had 13 sites at the time. So 13 sites, many different ERPs, holdcos, kinda rolling all that up, doing the currency translation, intercompany trend, intercompany eLIMS, all manually in Excel. So, yeah, it was it was a nightmare. So the closed process, and I think this is part of the value I think we would all recognize, but the closed process was very long. I mean, fifteen days, I think it was. Maybe thirteen working days, before we actually got a consolidated financial. And you never had the time. You're rolling up financials the whole time manually in Excel. So finding the time to actually do the analysis and value add and drive business growth was was very difficult. So I think that was it was an easy value proposition for us given where we were. Again, doing doing things manually and and operating on many different ERPs. So before the the sort of standardization of of an ERP, you know, globally, we implemented comp consolidations. And what that gave us was was, I think, two things. One, obviously, quicker, turnaround on the financial closing process, but also, obviously, more time to do value at work. So that consolidation process, I think, at the start manually, like I said, thirteen working days. And and by the end, when everything, you know, was ironed out, we became a little bit more efficient, understood the system. Not only the visibility, but we we minimize the the financial close down to six working days. Mhmm. So with that becomes, you know, obviously become more efficient. There's a cost savings there. Right? Because you don't have people rolling rolling up financials all day long and pulling together things manually, which is also an audit nightmare. So things became easier on the audit end, you know, more visibility even into the local ERPs. If you're not on one ERP, at least we had that you know, how many times, John, did we go back to the mapping file every month? Mhmm. Right? The mapping was the key. Right? So you can get your local ERP trial balance and and, you know, comp the way we did it was combination with GL account cost center, trading partner profit center. Right? That that that, I guess, string of numbers, right, becomes an identifier which goes into your consolidations GL. So anyway, visibility, cost savings, efficiency, more time for value add. It was it was a game changer for us, especially where we were at doing things manually. Yeah. It's it definitely is a value add for sure. And those efficiencies, were were there any others over the course of time as you transitioned from thirteen days, how how fast were you able to close the books kinda at at the peak at the most efficiency? Say most efficient was, I say six days, but we actually had a day little day buffer. So local close was four days. Most of the entities got pretty efficient, in three days. And then we had a two day sort of grace period to to roll everything up, make sure, you know, e limbs are running properly, you know, everything balances, ticks and ties, look into variances, make adjustments if needed. So six days, but on a good month, five days. That's that's pretty amazing. So that's more that's, more than a 100% gain in time saved right there. So you guys are are doing fantastic from the efficiency side. Were there other efficiencies that you guys gained over the last decade? Oh, yeah. I mean, the different scenarios allowed us to gain a lot of efficiency on the audit side as well. I mean, as as you know, being a global company, we have different audits, like, you know, in on the on the Dutch entities, they have to roll up based on the tax hierarchy and and jurisdictions. So, even running different scenarios was a big benefit for us. One, from a tax perspective. Also from a reporting or management perspective, we had different scenarios for what we call management EBITDA, where we can, you know, at a click of a button, you can get a financial statement that eliminates the APACs. And and if you're in PE environment, you know all about APACs. So that as well as, obviously, The US GAAP. So I think we had US GAAP, the management reporting, tax hierarchies, and then we also had pre act hierarchies. This is what we called it. But it was essentially pro formas. So as we did a bolt on acquisition or any acquisition, what we could do is within a different hierarchy layer in the the pre acquisition data so you can get an apples to apples or pro form a financial statement. And that's obviously definitely needed when you go through a quality of earnings or or some other, report such as that. So, the different scenarios and different ways to slice and dice data and and, you know, having that at your fingertips has been such an improvement. You know, and as you remember, John, we we implemented all the statistical accounts too. Alright? For key KPIs and how we manage the business. So things like production volumes and headcount data and things like that. And as you create a process on a monthly basis and you load that, you have it at your fingertips for all historicals and things. So list goes on and on, to be honest with you. Yeah. I'm curious because, you know, I kind of I kind of left shortly after the go live, from we were you're talking about audit audit. You dissed me. I know. You dissed me. I tossed it all all on Nick's lap. I said, I gotta do another one of these. These. And and from from the audit side, you know, over over the course of time and and value, you know, was there any and I don't you may not know this, but was there any value savings on, you know, the audits being shorter in duration because we had a system made it easier? Oh, 100100%. So, obviously, we did you know, being global company, we had our local audits. Those didn't change much. Those are local in the ERPs. But from a consolidation standpoint, I mean, just the the ability to get footnotes relatively quickly. But also, once the auditors became comfortable with the mapping, again, that's the key, right, from your local ERP to the consolidations. Once you have that clean mapping and they're comfortable with it, it's just a check every month. What we're also to do also able to do the way we book things within the system helped out a lot. So we can go, you know, from from one instance was basically in the consolidation system, this tied to, a local ERP. Right? And they can tick and tie that. Then there's another way we post the topside journal entries. Right? So anything topside, right, then it's a separate audit, and then the consolidation. Plus on top of that, proving out that eliminations and things are proper and happening correctly was very easy. We had a consolidating statement, that we would send the auditors. So, yeah, it was I would say the last five years of our audit process has been probably probably two years after go live, maybe even shorter than that. Obviously, it it you know, there's there's wins every year, but it was clockwork. It was simple. I mean, they knew we knew we knew what to send them. They'd look at the mapping files. They'd look at the consolidating statements. We'd we'd send them all footnotes. We'd write write all that automatically. So it was it was a game changer from an audit perspective too. And as you gain efficiency, obviously, you can negotiate lower audit fees. So, yeah, that was, some savings as well. I believe that's a easy one to overlook in terms of horrible UPM. You know, the the efficiency is an obvious one. I think everybody sees that through the automation of the processes. The technology is a killer there. It does a phenomenal job in the automation side. But saving money on your audit, I don't think everybody think I don't that doesn't come to top of mind right away for most people. So so that's great to hear. Yeah. I I sorry. I don't wanna I'm interrupting you. But but also, like I said, there's different views of the audit. Right? So we had to based on our hierarchy, we had to do an audit on our our Dutch side of the structure, which rolls up all legal entity legal entities subsidiaries underneath that. So what we were able to do is create another scenario. Right? When you think of intercompany. Right? You're you're not including the whole bucket anymore. You're only including what what was about 70% of our business. So, yeah, you have due to due from affiliates. Right? But that was very simple. We could we got it to where we we created a different scenario and it consolidated financials at that at that specific hierarchy, or or parent. And then everything from an ARAP, perspective or all other inner companies that kinda went across the chain, those are now due to affiliates and and rolling that up. I mean, we're we're actually working on redoing that, not because, you know, we're on a different ERPs and or a different, consolidation system now, and it's it's it's time consuming. So we did it manually last year, and it took months what used to take us, honestly, less than a week. So even things like that, you may not think of. I think having the the flexibility of different hierarchy scenarios, is very, very helpful. Right. The the ability to just go in and tweak hierarchy and and Oracle consolidations. Mhmm. As the business changes, so you have a lead a legal, a legal tax hierarchy change. Yep. You don't have to go in and make technical changes is what you're saying. Right? You can just go in and flip the flip the switch in the hierarchy and reconsolidate and you're done. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yep. That's that's great. Automatically do those, the eliminations and things with what's in that hierarchy. So, yeah, it it was. And, again, reconciling that and proving it from an audit perspective is is pretty simple. Right. That's right. So you were talking about, you know, in the, you know, in the beginning, you mentioned this private equity. And so there's there's a lot of, oops, There's a lot of, acquisitions going on, occasional divestiture possibly. So, you know, and and the subject subject here is the the first hundred days. And so I'm I'm curious, you know, when when you have an acquisition, you know, obviously, they have their own ERP system. You know, let's talk about value time to value in integrating a new a new code into a consolidated financial statements. How how have you guys been able to efficiently do that? Yeah. I think from a consolidation standpoint, I don't wanna say it's easy. We've done it so many times. It's it's as easy as the mapping. Right? You add an entity. You you make sure that that mapping is clean, added into the the hierarchies, and and, you know, you're you're ready to go, which I think is excellent. I mean, if you're doing a lot of acquisitions and, obviously, we know changing out and doing ERP changes is is very difficult. So having the ability to operate on different ERPs, but having visibility into the ERPs, also visibility from a consolidation, however we wanna report on a management basis or audit basis is is is from this it's needed. Right? Mhmm. Yeah. So I think also when we're thinking about, m and a, I think the data kind of explains the day to day, and you have a process and you can kinda, you know, hey. We need this on a monthly basis. You do the mapping. It's pretty simple. But also, like I mentioned before, the the the pro form a statements and things. Right? Having that flexibility when somebody comes in and says, hey, you know, we're we're gonna go through a a sale process here or or whatever it may be, and you we need to see everything on a pro form a basis, and you can you can get that for them at at a, you know, click of a finger. Yeah. Pro pro form a meaning, like, I wanna see last year's this year I wanna see this quarter compared to last quarter or last year, but you didn't own them last year. Right? Yep. That would be pro form a. So yeah. Exactly. So I wanna see the last three years financial statements as if this acquisition you closed last week were in in the financials. Right? But you can't add it to your audited financials. So that's where the scenarios come in play. So you load it a separate scenario that rolls up to your management reporting. Right? And then that very simply simple for for pro form a purposes or apples to apples comparison over the years. But then when auditors come in and say, hey. I I need, you know, financial statements for this year and you you did a you know, you closed a transaction a few weeks ago, that would only be in from that point on forward. So again, flexibility and and how rolling up, you know, financial statements. Yeah. Great. So what's what's been your one of your some of your favorite, features to EPM? I think we talked about a lot of them, but I would have to say it's the time saving with doing the mundane tasks of consolidations and and rolling things up. Right? And really allowing you to get into the analysis and actually helping the business rather than just rolling things up. Right? I mean, I think that's what most of us wanna do. We wanna help the business grow. But being in accounting and and finance, sometimes you get stuck, you know, with the day to day tasks and it's rolling it up and fitting it out, but you you don't have as much time to analyze it. So I think the most exciting piece was getting more involved, stop stopping the day to day, the mundane tasks on a monthly basis. Some of that's processed, a lot of it's system to allow you to be a more of a business partner. Right? I think that's best people to get. Yeah. That's a good feeling when you go from just being in, you know, a tool that that's doing tasks one one over the other to to a true business partner. I think that's a great feeling, that we all you know, we wanna get all of our analysts to to be at the end of the day. And EPM definitely has the ability to make every analyst into that that valuable tool. And it brings purpose to each of those those roles. Right? You know, to be able to drive value to the business at the end of the day, improve margin, you know, get products out to the customers faster, and create happier customers. Right? The net promoter score, going back to that, that's what it's all about at the end of the day. So that's that's great. John, because I think happier employees. I mean Right. There has been minimal to no turnover in my group, I'd say, for, like, five years. And you remember you probably remember John or, Robert. He was with me for, you know, ten years almost. Doe helping me with consolidations and everything. But I think, you know, getting people involved in something is is always critical and this has allowed us to do that. Mhmm. And allow us to drive growth, which is all ultimate goal. Right? Yeah. That's right. Did did you guys use Smart View? Yes. Yeah. You guys probably did you guys use it a lot? That's all we used. Yeah. I'm with them. Yeah. We we actually went through we were going to, I think what we call them was books at the time where you automate the financial reporting package and it spits out a PDF. But we found that, you know, it's a lot of once you get it set up, fine. Fair enough. But you can just use Smart View and and get the same thing at the click of a, you know, you know, snap of your finger. So, yeah. We actually use Smart View for, all of our internal, external reporting, audit, everything. So Yeah. And we have canned reports, right, where we had a you know, you have an input tab and you change the date, change the the the year if need be, and hit refresh, and here you go. Here's everything. Right? So you can imagine how easy the audit was when you had all that set up. They knew what to expect. We had it automated. It's a click of a figure, you know, click of a button and send it out and then obviously, not that easy, but you gotta tick and tie it. So, you know. Yeah. That's right. I think that's one of the most powerful tools that Oracle has in their repertoire, SmartView. It's definitely the, FP and A and accountant's dream. So Yeah. I don't know. Again, I'm I'm not the expert. I don't know if, this is systems or data, but, you know, what we use now with Vibrantz, we actually are on, something else. And it is much, much slower. So I don't know if that's the amount of data. Again, we've tripled in size. So, but, yeah, SmartView was was quick. And that's why we'll be going out to have a beer to talk about that at in the near future. Yeah. So alright. I we already kinda answered that one. And we got we got about a minute left, so we'll wrap this up. You know, if anybody's got any questions you guys wanna talk to us about, EPM, and I'm happy to happy to schedule a call with you, and, we can talk about it. If you wanna talk about ERP, HCM, CX, I can get a call scheduled on your calendar with the right, solution architect. We appreciate you joining our, webcast today. There have been, several other web series that you can see here. You can you can use, the link there on the right with your phone if you're interested in exploring some of those other webcast. And we have another one coming up on the thirteenth and possibly one that might happen in between now and then as well. We're still working on finalizing that. But we hope to see you in the near future as, we continue this series on. And we we think we're gonna continue the baseball theme with the top five to 10 plays in a few of our customers' EPM systems. So top five things they like the most. So stay tuned for that. Have a great day and continue to be the all star that you are. Thank you all.