This document discusses best practices for reference data management for corporate finance and other domains. It provides an overview of reference data and its uses, challenges in managing reference data, and a case study of United Technologies' implementation of a reference data management solution. United Technologies implemented projects to manage supplier, finance, tax, and legal reference data across its multiple business units and legal entities in order to create a single source of truth and eliminate redundant data requests. The project focused on governance, workflows, and integration with existing systems.

1. BEST
PRACTICES:
Hands
On
Reference
Data
Management
For
Corporate
Finance
And
Beyond
(Wally
Powell),
John
Nicoll-­‐SenM,
Larry
Keyser,
United
Technologies
Conrad
Chuang,
Orchestra
Networks
October
22,
2013
www.orchestranetworks.com
@orchestramdm

2. Agenda
ü Quick
overview
of
reference
data
ü Case
Study:
Legal
Data
Management
Challenges
at
United
Technologies
ü Q&A
www.orchestranetworks.com
@orchestramdm

3. What
is
reference
data?
Reference
data
is
a
sub-­‐set
of
master
data
that
is
shared
or
connects
mulDple
master
data
domains.
CharacterisDcs
ü FoundaDonal,
shared
between
domains
ü LiIle/no
semanDc
overloading
ü Two
flavors:
Private
and
Public
ü Needed
in
both
operaDonal
and
analyDcal
use
cases
www.orchestranetworks.com
@orchestramdm

4. Reference Data Categories
Multi-Domain
RDM Use Cases
Public
(External)
SemiPrivate?
(Shared)
Private
(Internal)
Countries & Subdivisions (FIPS10)
Currencies (ISO 4217)
Time Zones (ISO 8601)
Industry Classification (NAICS, ISIC)
Real-Time / Transactional
RDM Use Cases
Security Prices
SWIFT BIC Codes (Payments)
ICD-9/10 Codes (Healthcare)
ACORD/ISO Codes (Insurance)
Customized Public Reference
Standards (e.g. customized D&B)
Shared Private Data (Finance)
Legal Entities
Chart of Accounts
Organizations
Employees
(i.e., much of HR & Finance Data)
© 2012 The MDM Institute www.The-MDM-Institute.com
Reference data required for
transaction processing

5. How
master
data
domains
rely
upon
reference
data
Supply
Chain
Sourcing
Supply
Chain
OperaDons
ProducDon
MarkeDng
Sales/
MarkeDng
Sales
Overlay
FuncDons
(Finance,
HR,
GRC)
Cost/revenue
centers;
Corp
En00es/Divisions
Sales
territories,
Product
Mgmt
Contracts,
SLAs
HR
Finance
GRC
Private
RDM
Public
RDM
(Geographies,
Codes)
www.orchestranetworks.com
@orchestramdm
5

6. Reference
Data
Management
challenges
ü Modeling
o Business
rules/constraints
(on
values
and
relaDonships)
ü Managing
RelaDonships
o Between
domains
o Between
versions
(past,
present
and
future)
ü AdaptaDons/customizaDon
of
reference
data
ü Governance
and
authoring
o Subject
mater
experts
and
business
users
are
accountable!
o Workflow,
approvals,
security
ü IntegraDon
with
other
downstream
applicaDons/consumers
o Access
(export/import)
o DistribuDon
www.orchestranetworks.com
@orchestramdm

7. Managing
RelaYonships:
Public
to
private
mappings
Country
to
Official
Currencies
Country
to
Country
Group
Public
Reference
Data
Airport
to
Country
Airlines
to
Airport
AircraZ
to
on
route
Private
reference
data
www.orchestranetworks.com
@orchestramdm

8. AdaptaYons/customizaYon
of
Reference
Data
North
America
(According
to
Legal)
North
America
(According
to
Sales)
www.orchestranetworks.com
@orchestramdm

9. Managing Finance Reference Data at UTC
(Wally Powell), John Nicoll-Senft & Larry Keyser
9

10. UNITED TECHNOLOGIES (UTC) OVERVIEW
" MulDple
business
units
" 218,300
Employees
" 4,000
locaDons
in
71
countries
" 1,000+
legal
enDDes
" Conducts
business
in
about
180
countries
" 24th
largest
US
manufacturer
" 48th
largest
US
corporaDon
" 120th
largest
company
in
the
world
Building & Industrial Systems
Aerospace
10

11. UTC OVERVIEW FY2012
11

12. THREE MAIN PROJECTS
• Supplier Management – “One Supplier”
• Vendor, Commodity Code, Supply Chain Org Structure (not finance!)
• Consolidated HFM
• Automate changes to HFM hierarchies (node changes, new entities, etc.)
• Tax Technology
• Integration between managerial, tax, legal entities (Not supply chain!)
12

13. Legal Entity Data
Management Challenges
13

14. LEGAL ENTITY MANAGEMENT – WHY?
" Issue
Legal vs. Mgt vs. Tax entities
Redundant data requests
Significant manual effort to
gather and reconcile data
" Objective
Single source of the truth
Eliminate redundant data
requests
Focus organization on
higher value tasks
Enable legal entity financial
reporting
14

15. CONSOLIDATED LEGAL ENTITY REPORTING
CHALLENGES
GEMS
• 1,400 Legal
Entities
HFM
• 7,000
Reporting
Entities
CORPTAX
• 1,350 Int’l Tax
Entities
• 550 Domestic
Tax Entities
Mappings can be 1:1, 1:n or n:1
HFM has alternate hierarchies (roll-ups) and mappings
e.g. Forecasting, Planning, Management performance calculations
15

16. TAX TECHNOLOGY APPLICATION
Domains covered by the application:
- Financial (HFM)
- Legal (GEMS)
- Tax Compliance (CorpTax)
- Tax Planning (LongView)
- Real estate (BIG)

17. MANAGERIAL ENTITY (HFM)
HFM metadata and relationships comes from
BU HFM

18. LEGAL ENTITY (GEMS)

19. MAPPING BETWEEN GEMS AND HFM

20. GEMS WORKFLOW
Distributed workflow
Tasks distributed by function: Tax Technology,
BU Tax Dept, Treasury
Tabs can be hidden/shown based on
permissions

21. FOREIGN TAX ENTITY (CORPTAX)

22. FOREIGN TAX ENTITY
Distributed Workflow:
Tasks distributed by BU: Otis, UTAS, Pratt, CCS,
Sikorsky & Foreign Corporate
Tabs can be hidden/shown based on permissions

23. SAMPLE HIERARCHY

24. WHAT WE DID
Reference Data Hub
(EBX5)
GEMS
Legal Entities
1,400+
CORPTAX
GEMS
Int’l Tax Entities 1,350+
Dom Tax Entities 550+
HFM
Mgmt. Entities
7.000+
Sikorsky
Ledgers
• Governance for reference
data, mappings, versions
• Phase I: 60+ CorpFin
Users, 1 Admin/Dev,
• Phase II: Add tax
reporting, real-estate
SAP
CCS
Other
CORPTAX
Corporate
UTAS
JDE &
SAP
Otis
JDE
P&W
SAP
24

25. SUPPLY CHAIN TRANSFORMATION
Master Data Management
Dashboards/
Reports
BU ERP
Systems
Spreadsheets/
other sources
of master data
EBX maintains the golden record/single source of truth for
commodities, suppliers and organizational structure
25

26. LESSONS LEARNED
• Get buy in from your business partners
•
Easy to adopt technology enables business user self service and facilitates
adoption of workflows
•
Coexist with tools commonly used in your user community. MDM is gold standard,
but we support imports/exports from/to Excel
• Don’t over engineer/over-plan use agile methods
•
Getting people to use tool as early as possible provides feedback into the
development process and builds support
•
Easy-to-learn technology gets you productive more quickly
• Don’t boil the ocean
•
Focus on projects that will deliverer value quickly
•
Adopt technology that can be easily adjusted/customized to support changing
business needs
26

27. Wally Powell
United Technologies Corporation
Walden.Powell@utc.com
Larry Keyser
United Technologies Corporation
larry.keyser@utc.com
John Nicoll-Senft
United Technologies Corporation
John.nicoll-senft@utc.com
Conrad Chuang
Orchestra Networks
conrad.chuang@orchestranetworks.com