Financial Organization Strategy Definition and Implementation
The challenge
A global leader in information protection and storage services with over $2 billion in revenue and 90,000 clients worldwide came to us with a need for the effective execution of a sound merger integration strategy. Over the last 10 years, the Company acquired more than 150 companies.
The Company engaged RSM McGladrey’s CFO Advisory Services team to assist in a number of initiatives that will have significant impacts on the efficiency of their overall business. With the rapid acquisition of companies and a number of disparate financial processes and systems, the Company has had a significant need for streamlining their financial operations and standardizing processes and systems across the organization. Additionally, there has been a substantial organizational need to migrate from a de-centralized, loosely controlled financial operation to a centralized, tightly controlled operation.
They required a solution that would provide a number of benefits including:
- Standardization of processes and procedures across the organization
- The ability to manage the company on a single technology platform (Oracle)
- Achievement of cost savings by reducing the redundancy of financial operations throughout the organization
- An effective financial organizational structure that would serve as the platform for achieving the above benefits
The solution
The RSM McGladrey CFO Advisory Services group took a multi-year, multi-phased approach to achieving the Company’s business objectives. As part of this approach, our solutions included the following components:
- Conducting interviews with the Executive Team to identify all areas of opportunity related to people, process and technology as well as the development of a phased approach to address these areas of opportunity
- Development and Implementation of a Shared Service center approach to “centralize” the financial operations of the organization, reduce redundant processes within the busines, and result in cost savings of approximately $10 million
- Development of a Financial Systems Strategy that standardized and improved transaction processing and reporting throughout the organization
- Implementation of Oracle E-business suite throughout the company both domestically and internationally
- Process definition/improvement rollout to multiple sites/business units across the organization
- Integration of multiple acquisitions throughout the Company with a focus on people, process and technology standardization and improvement
The results
RSM McGladrey CFO Advisory Services provided the Company with an effective organizational process and technology model that allowed the finance organization to achieve a number of benefits including:
- Cost savings by eliminating redundant financial operations
- Increased control of transactional and financial reporting processes
- Decreases in monthly close cycle resulting from efficient systems and processes
- Improved visibility to their global finance organization
- Improved visibility to global business results
