ERP Consolidation Decreases Operating Cost 55%
Application Integration and Automation Improves DSO 38%
August 2, 2022
System Implementations: When is a Project Complete?
February 23, 2023
The Client
A Private Equity firm collapsed 13 global companies into 5 business units, each operating with separate enterprise applications.
The Challenge
During the acquisition process, there was no focus on enterprise application consolidation. Due to this, Finance was left to reconcile 5 ERPs and various spreadsheets on a monthly basis to close the books and generate financial statements.
This manual reconciliation process meant that Leadership waited up to two weeks after month-end to see the health of the business and up to a month at quarter and year end. Without real-time, consolidated reporting, Leadership was unable to…
- Take quick, decisive action during changing market events
- Respond to questions raised by the Board and the Private Equity firm owners on the health of the business
- Determine strategic steps for growth and cost efficiencies
The Opportunity
With five separately operating ERP systems, the client decided to consolidate into a single system. After a thorough vendor selection process, the team decided to implement NetSuite. The project started. And restarted. After 2 years and $1.9M, no significant business deliverables were realized and the 5 ERP systems were still in use.
Leadership decided that a new approach was needed to move the project forward. So, the decision was made to break the NetSuite implementation into two phases: North America and APAC/EMEA. The goal of creating phases lasting no more than 4 months was to increase the chances of success, improve adoption and ensure focus for the project team. With this new plan, business requirements for each phase were clearly documented and approved by Finance – the primary stakeholder –, and the project started for a 3rd time.
The Outcome
The team completed a 4-month phase 1 APAC/EMEA deployment, followed by a 4-month phase 2 North America deployment at a cost of $548,000 (71% less than the previous attempts combined). With the successful completion of the program, the client was able to eliminate 4 ERP contracts (one business unit was using NetSuite prior to the program) and operate their global financials for $405,000 – a 55% cost reduction.
In addition to operating cost reductions, the client realized the following immediate improvements:
- Automated foreign currency reporting translation and transactional revaluation
- Immediate global consolidated reporting, including custom options
- Visibility into transactional level for all business units
- Automated revenue recognition
- Consolidated global chart of accounts
About Revtelligence Inc.
“Going beyond system implementations to accelerate revenue”. Revtelligence is an operations technology company that assists small- to medium-sized companies automate and maintain critical operational business processes and systems. Aligning IT and Operations initiatives to produce real and measurable business value, Revtelligence helps companies achieve strategic business goals and objectives. The Revtelligence Team can perform all functions related to operational strategy, including strategy formation and execution, business-focused project and program management, business analysis and consulting, application administration and development, and system integrations. Revtelligence also offers Application Managed Services to maintain your core operations systems and processes, allowing our clients to only pay for the business analysis and development time they need for regular enhancements and release management. For more information, please visit www.revtelligence.com.
