The Role of Process Owners in Successful EPM Implementations

Financial Forecasting & Planning Summit
September 15, 2011 | InterContinental | Boston

The Role of the Process Owner in
Successful EPM Initiatives

Curtis Neumann CPA
AT&T
Corporate Finance Systems

curtis.p.neumann@att.com

www.curtisneumann.com

© 2007 AT&T Knowledge Ventures. All rights reserved. AT&T
and the AT&T logo are trademarks of AT&T Knowledge Ventures.

Page Description Page Description

3 Presentation Purpose 17 4. PO Requirement Gathering & Design

4 Process Owners Organizational Structure 18 5. Research Vendor Options

5 Traditional Functional/Process Roles 19 6. Assess Current and Future Needs of
Options
6 Issues with Finance Going it Alone in 20 7. Assess Improvement, Productivity & Cost
Implementations

7 Issues with IT Going it Alone in 21 8. Prototype Tool
Implementations
8 EPM Process Owner Defined 22 9. Make Purchase Decision

9 Process Owner Benefits to Finance 23 10. Develop Solution
10 Process Owner Benefits to Finance – 24 11. Process Owner Testing
Cont’d

11 Process Owner EPM Implementation 25 12. Solution into Production
Case
12 Process Owner Operational Model 26 The Process Owner Best Practice Approach

13 Process Owner Operational Model Cont’d 27 Q&A

14 1. Finance Process Strategy 28 Appendix A: The Finance Process Owner
owns EPM
15 2. Sponsorship Message to Key 29 Curtis’ Blog
Stakeholders
16 3. Process Owner Responsibilities

The Roles of Process Owners in Successful EPM Initiatives Page 2 curtis.p.neumann@att.com

Much has been written over the years about general
process management best practices

This presentation is intend to convey my opinions
about process ownership best practices as they
apply to the Finance arena within the Fortune 500

There are a least a dozen key elements required to
construct and maintain efficient and effective
financial reporting and planning systems


I
“I support the strategic initiatives to
innovate our enterprise Finance
CFO processes.”

Corporate Sales Operations Process IT
Accounting
Finance Finance Finance Owners Developers

• CFO is catalyst if change is to occur
• Head Process Owner sits at the CFO table

• PO owns all enterprise Finance processes
• Requirements go directly from users to PO

• PO partners with IT to implement system as
per end user requirements


Finance Users IT Programmers

How data is
Analyze and Understand Understand
calculated and
accountable to software data
viewed is
data functionality transformation
important

Understand Programming
business drivers expertise (SQL
and strategy & OLAP)


 Too busy to implement
 Lack of EPM technology background
 Software tool vendor differentiation
 Project management background
 Integration risk


 With complete requirements, IT great at
execution
 IT solutions may be short term focused
 Difficult for IT group to discern HOW tools
should produce outputs
 Very system technical, but unfamiliar with
spreadsheet models
 IT team member continuity issue
 How to prioritize?


Finance IT
End User Developer

 An EPM Process Owner has a combination of
finance and IT knowledge and skills
 Required to project manage and maintain best
practice process
 Has authority to create change through innovation

 Combined finance and technology knowledge
provide key insights
 Key finance principles upheld across enterprise
 The “Single Version of the Truth”
 Consistent financial and operation data
definitions
 Reliable data integration
 Consistent planning assumptions and
methods applied across enterprise


 Relationships with both end user clients and IT
based on trust
 Efficiencies gained in EPM implementations, PO’s
 Understand how to roll out EPM solutions
 Able to effectively perform User Acceptance
Testing
 Leverage knowledge gained in other projects
 Dedicated to project implementations and
maintenance


 A Process Owner’s value to a CFO organization
can best be conveyed with a case study example
 Let’s say a CFO asks his/her Finance Process
Owner lead to come up with a process to replace
hundreds of spreadsheets, that encompass a
detailed cost allocation and product profitability
process, with a best practice more automated
solution
 The new process should leverage (purchase)
current Business Intelligence (BI) technology
and implement solution


Sponsorship
Vision

Process Owner
1 Strategy 2 Message 3 Responsibilities

Execute BI Software Purchase

Implement Solution


Requirements Research Assess
Purchas Execution

Vendor Current and
4 Gathering &
Design 5 Options
6 Future Needs

Assess Make
Improvement, Prototype Purchase
7 Productivity &
Cost
8 Tools
9 Decision
Implementation

10 11 Process 12 Solution
Develop
Owner into
Solution
Testing Production

 CFO understands current process states and
collaborates with Finance leaders
 What is needed to better manage business
 Vision is tied to organizations success
 Vision drives change
 Identify Process Owner and team


 It is extremely important for the Process Owner
to be empowered to implement EPM change:
 CFO communicates prolifically the framework
for change
E.G. “We need to construct a product
profitability reporting and planning process
to help us make decisions about what
businesses we retain going forward…”
 CFO announces Process Owner and team by
name
 Everyone is accountable to be successful
 Keep message simple and realistic


 Initiative will change the way their work is done
for the better
 Since PO takes full accountability, he/she
decides when conflict resolution is required
 Process Owner should communicate his/her
responsibilities across a matrix org. structure
 Creates design across the enterprise
 Implementation and long term maintenance
 Builds team
 Establishes performance milestone and
measurements


 Select a good project process methodology (E.G. Six
Sigma - efine, easure, nalyze, mprove &
ontrol) and document with a Project Charter
General Process Owner Approach

Evaluate Collect Design
Current User New
Process Requirements Process
 Sourcing data  Based on  Determine
mart Strategy process steps
 Spreadsheets  New  What type of
Capabilities technology
 Reporting (OLAP or SQL
 How process or both)
 Etc. should work
PO: Finance Knowledge and PO: IT Skills
Skills

General Process Owner Approach (cont’d)

Requirements vs.
External Research
Software Features

 Match BI Functional  Customer References
and Non-Functional
Requirements  External Research
Publications – Gartner
 Consider Legacy / Forrester
Process Integration
 Vendor Viability –
 Demo Different Sales & years in
Software business

Process Owner: IT Skills


 Are there opportunities to expand BI beyond
needs currently identified?
 Corporate initiative expanding to Business
Unit Finance groups
 Financial Reporting and Planning BI tool
expansion to other functional / operational
needs
 Order-to-Cash Cycles
 Procure-to-Pay Cycles
 Sales Forecasting by Customer and
Product
 Predictive Analytics


 Weigh improvements, productivities and
implementation cost
 Don’t get locked into the initial cost
 Process productivities result in redeployment
of resources
 New BI process will provide additional
capabilities not currently available
(important)
 Faster decisions
 More reliable data
 Impact of better decisions should
figure into ROI (e.g. Higher EPS)


 If possible, attempt to test the BI software
before purchasing it
 Construct a small application
 Remote access into vendors’ servers or loading
software to in-house server
 Easier for company leadership to make a
purchase decision, if a working model meets
expectations


 Prior to decision, Process Owner should meeting
with end users, IT and leadership to discuss how
purchase decision was reached
 The PO should be able to directly tie the process
improvements back to the CFO strategy
 Create a development timeline with key
milestone accomplishments
 Purchase BI tool


 Requirements should be complete to avoid churn
 Development roadmap with detailed timeline
 Constant contact and progress reviews
 Process Owner delegated to make decisions on
behalf of end user client
 Recommend same hardware setup for both Test
and Production environments


 Test at specific roadmap milestones
 Resolve issues along the way
 Opportunity to provide updates to end user
clients on verified progress
 Determine “Is this what you were expecting?”
 Identify changes
 Manage expectations for both IT and end users
 Stress testing


 Changes only in Test environment, then released
to Production
 Never make changes to Production – Official
data
 Monitor BI performance
 Good plan for disaster recovery
 Anticipate platform growth
 Survey users to identify future enhancements
 Positive feedback to leadership
 CFO initiative met


 When executing EPM initiatives, the “Who”
(Process Owner) will determine the quality of
the “What, When and the How”
 Successful Finance initiatives require leaders
that are confident about executing change and
possess the necessary traits
 Finance process knowledge - Book close to
Financial Reporting
 Technical software application and database
skills
 Excellent project management skills
 And a bit of thick skin to deal with those that
are resistant to change


Core EPM Management Processes
What is EPM?
Enterprise
Performance Setting
Management (EPM) Goals
consists of a set of Analysis & Financial
management and KPI’s
Planning
analytic ,
supported by Shared
, that Data
enable businesses to
define strategic goals Operational
Reporting
and then measure and Planning
manage performance
against those goals Consolidation

The Roles of Process Owners in Successful EPM Initiatives Page 28
curtis.p.neumann@att.com

Curtis’ Blog – www.curtisneumann.com


The Role of Process Owners in Successful EPM Implementations

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