Biotech manufacturer enhances reporting capabilities with Oracle Fusion migration

Overview

Our client was transitioning from NetSuite to Oracle Fusion. Deloitte Consulting developed the project scope, which was then handed over to internal IT to manage with the help of a third-party vendor who specialized in Oracle Fusion. The project was a corporate priority and very well managed.

Client Description

Biotech manufacturer producing instruments and reagents in the United States, Singapore, and ten additional European sales subsidiaries. The migration project was primarily driven from the U.S. headquarters, with key internal business leaders managing the European and Singapore implementations.

Problem

A main requirement for migrating to Oracle Fusion was to increase the reporting capabilities and KPIs by product, region, channel, and customer category in ways the current system could not support. FP&A sponsored this reporting requirement internally. The project was well managed but did not have a workstream for FP&A involvement. When FP&A asked about the reporting status, they were told it would be available for discussion or review at end-to-end testing (final phase) when data was available in the new formats.

Solution

Vindasius was engaged in managing the finance stream for this project. Based on our experience, waiting until the end of the project to understand how a key deliverable will be handled is concerning. We elevated our concern and required a session to demonstrate the data structure and supporting calculations to satisfy the reporting requirements. This process also helps align what key data structure changes were needed to support these requirements and add them to our tracking dashboard.

The session with the data engineers identified several “gaps” in where the source data would come from that needed to be addressed before the data transition stream was completed. More importantly, the data engineers planned to provide the reports on an “entity by entity” basis. The need for reporting on a consolidated basis had not been specified previously. It was then uncovered that the consolidation process was not addressed in any project plan phase.

The company had multiple foreign entities with a variety of currency conversion standards. There needed to be considerable time devoted to the setup and testing of consolidations using the two years of historical data planned to be loaded.

Outcome

Business oversight from an experienced, knowledgeable resource like Vindasius should be applied to any complex ERP migration. This allows for a thorough review of the project plan, looking for “completeness.” We were able to ask the necessary questions about components of the project plan that seemed incomplete to avoid critical misses like consolidations.