Pidilite eliminated spreadsheet-based manual closing of books and financial consolidation with MAIA’s 1KEY FCM

1. CASE STUDIES
Pidilite deploys MAIA 1KEY FCM to
streamline financials
Pidilite eliminated spreadsheet-based manual closing of
books and financial consolidation with MAIA’s 1KEY FCM
By Rajendra Chaudhary
A LAYMAN MAY NOT know much about Additionally, the accounts officers at
Pidilite but ask him about adhesives and the company’s head office would
the first name that you would be likely to manually consolidate the data coming
hear would be that of Fevicol—which from 19 companies using Microsoft
has become a household name in Excel sheets.
adhesives. Such is the company’s lead in
its space. For over half a decade, Pidilite As per Prasad Parab, CIO, Pidilite
Industries has been a pioneer in the Industries, the company’s accountants
consumer and specialties chemicals and financial officers were facing
business in India. Additionally, it also increasing pressure when it came to the
manufactures a range of paint chemicals, consolidation of financial accounts based
art materials, textile, industrial resins and on group companies, business areas,
organic pigments. profit centers, divisions/branches, and
PRASAD PARAB, CIO,
SBUs. “The statutory consolidation PIDILITE INDUSTRIES
Pidilite has operations with multiple reporting, which required the reported The finance executives were facing
business units within and outside India. data to be aggregated into consolidated difficulty in consolidating financial
and operating results using
In recent years, with its expanding financial statements on a quarterly basis, spreadsheets that were difficult
business and continued growth, the had become a major business issue,” said to maintain and audit
company has found it increasingly Parab.
difficult to manage its financial couldn’t pull the data from numerous
consolidation and reporting activities. As The company not only struggled transactional systems without significant
it deals with multiple currencies, variouswith the consolidation of financial data IT support. Too often, the company got
accounting standards and a host of and efforts that it took for coordinating tripped up by the inter-company
reporting and compliance regulations, the with financial users spread across three reconciliation process, data quality,
company struggled with the challenges continents viz. Asia, Europe and North collection errors, weak audit trails, poor
brought on by the integration of new America, but it also faced issues around performance of the applications being
business units into the reporting chain. getting large volumes of data validated used for consolidation and lack of
Additionally, Pidilite was required to and certified by users (24 months of automation for key processes.
balance the need for precise financial historical data for each of the regions)
reporting and corporate governance with and this was becoming a lingering issue. Sandeep Batra, Director-Finance,
the need for timeliness in meeting The task was further compounded by the Pidilite Industries said that on many
reporting deadlines. challenges faced in consolidating Excel occasions, the finance team had to sit
sheets on account of the software’s with the IT team and spend hours in
Consolidating spreadsheets shortcomings with regard to data fixing errors, which not only meant
became a challenge integration, visibility of subsidiary and longer financial close cycles but also
international data, inter-company considerable financial overheads. This
The group companies of Pidilite eliminations and dimensionality. also meant that critical financial
Industries were using different financial information wouldn’t be available for the
accounting applications and, up until Finance executives at Pidilite were decision makers and the investors when
recently, regulatory financial facing the daunting task of consolidating they needed it the most.
consolidation reporting used to take a company’s financial and operating
nearly a month to put together. results using spreadsheets that were
difficult to maintain and audit. They
26 EXPRESS INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISE JUNE 2010

2. CASE STUDIES
Data coming from different
companies located in countries such as
India USA, Egypt, Bangladesh, UAE, Some key reports generated
Indonesia, Brazil, Singapore, Thailand,
etc. is in different currencies. For with 1KEY FCM
consolidation, converting them to Indian
rupees was necessary which was
challenging in the previous system.  Balance Sheet - Standalone
 Balance Sheet - Schedule Standalone
The management team decided that  Balance Sheet - With comparative figures
it needed standard robust automated  Profit & Loss - Standalone
systems to improve and speed up its  Profit & Loss - Schedule Standalone
business processes.  Profit & Loss - With comparative figures
 Profit & Loss - Schedule with comparative figures
MAIA’s 1KEY FCM fitted the bill  Consolidated Balance Sheet
 Consolidated Profit & Loss
Pidilite wanted a fast and efficient  Consolidated Balance Sheet Schedule
system which provided it with the ability  Consolidated P&L Schedule
to complete its accounting cycles and
close its books quickly and accurately. It
wanted more time for value-added standards of the group. 1KEY FCM
analysis, improved control systems and translates the standardized financial data
quality and faster reporting and statutory from the various local currencies into the
compliance. group currencies. The effects of group-
internal relationships (for example, from
It was towards the end of 2008, that inter-unit trade and services) have been
that the company went looking for a eliminated and now the company can
business solution. Given the harsh calculate the consolidated financial
economic realities of the time, Pidilite statements as if the group were a single
wanted to ensure that it got the best value entity.
for its money. It found the answer in completely eliminated the manual
MAIA Intelligence’s 1KEY FCM process of financial consolidation with Some other other key benefits of the
solution. It wanted a solution that Excel and results were published within deployment include Foreign Currency
delivered consistent external and internal four-to-five working days of the closure Translation Reserve getting updated
financial information in a timely manner of a given period. The financial automatically in the consolidated
and 1KEY FCM seemed to fit the bill consolidation also happened in just ten financial reports as per current
perfectly as it provided integrated legal days for all of the company’s accounting standards and a Working
and management financial consolidation subsidiaries. Financial users can now Capital Dashboard being made available
with flexible reporting capabilities. have multiple Charts of Accounts (COA) to the CFO.
for a single trial balance and can even get
The implementation project started financial statements as per IFRS or Encouraged by the compliments
in late 2008 and the company went live Schedule VI, etc. Also mapping of COA received from the investors and the
with the new system in June 2009. has now become a one-time exercise senior management for providing them
Further, the solution had to be integrated with 1KEY FCM. with the right inputs on time the finance
with a variety of data sources including team is contemplating closing the books
SAP, Orion ERP and Tally at the Users at Pidilite can now map group on a monthly basis. ■
backend and tuned as per the needs of the as well as ledger as per the statutory
finance and accounts users before it requirement and also compare financial rajendra.c@expressindia.com
could be rolled out. statements across any period, any
company or any country, rather easily.
Benefits
The solution has allowed Pidilite to
It has been a year since Pidilite standardize the financial data and
began running 1KEY FCM and Parab consolidate the same for statutory and
was all praises for the solution. management reports from its subsidiaries
According to him, the company had to adhere to the accounting and valuation
JUNE 2010 EXPRESS INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISE 27