Archives: Case Study

Planning to Succeed

How ORYX Plan replaced MS Access to provide a solution that supported the business expansion needs of a world leading Insurer

The highly manual practices required for the Underwriting and Expense Planning processes, along with a convoluted approach to analysing data, left the timeworn MS Access based planning system struggling to cope.

How did finance streamline its planning process to provide a more controlled and enterprise friendly solution?

Client Fact File

• A specialist Insurer
• Part of a global group, with a trading history of over a century, an employee base of over 50,000 and turnover of $40 billion
• Provider of a wide range of insurance products
• Provider of a wide range of insurance products

Key Project Metrics

• First of multiple project engagements
• Key business benefits achieved:
  • Automation of planning and calculations, removing all manual input
  • Annual cost benefit of £100,000
  • Redeployment of resources to higher value tasks
  • Rapid turnaround on strategic plan changes

Background

The rapidly increasing volumes of data, the instability of the MS Access based planning system, and the restrictions within the Earnings Calculation engine were causing great concern for the finance department of this large insurer, who felt their existing system was unable to meet the requirements of the newly expanded business.

Underwriting and Expense planning processes had to be calculated separately, and this required the finance team to manually input data twice in order to link them, and then to analyse the data in Excel. This was time consuming, and even stopped the business from fully analysing its data, as time restricted the amount of information that could be transferred from one system to the other.

Additionally, when the team wished to create a new plan scenario, it required the replication of the database. The team were then left without version control, and it was difficult to understand which expense and underwriting versions linked up, causing confusion for staff, and an unacceptable risk for the business.

Accountagility replaced the MS Access based planning processes with an automated and unified solution. This provided appropriate rules and business processes to provide universal access to data, calculations, plans, analysis and custom reporting facilities.

The Project

Accountagility were invited to undertake a review of the requirements to provide a streamlined and future proofed system, one that was fit to support the rapid expansion of the business.

ORYX Plan was configured to combine the iterative data processing and analysis activities of both the Underwriting and Expense planning processes, into one environment.

The planning computation was distilled into a set of rules that would be easily modified, tested and deployed in a cost effective and timely manner, and custom rules were built to cover special requirements ensuring all the planning needs were met. All data was transferred and stored on a single database server allowing the implementation of formal plan versioning and cross version analysis.

Finally, the in-built reporting features allowed multiple depths of analysis, so views of detailed data analysis, through to slice and dice views, and template reporting were all easily available

The ORYX Solution

• ORYX Plan
• Single solution for budgeting planning and forecasting
• Part of a full suite of solutions for the Finance function that greatly reduces risk and improves performance output

Key Outcomes

The Accountagility solution exceeded the original expectations of the client by:

• Allowing the finance team to access all data stored within one robust planning environment, and supporting the business with continuous forecasts
• Integrating into other systems and enabling full ledger uploads and regulatory exports
• Creating a single process for both Underwriting and Expense planning, the fully integrated solution allowed execution of all allocations and inbuilt computations from a single click
• Reducing the cycle time required to perform planning related activities
• Releasing of staff time over a two year period equivalent to over £200,000, by automating the high volumes of manual data entry
• Allowing the new solution to be easily modified by the finance staff; rules can be modified, tested and deployed by the team as and when required, as the business continues to evolve

Strategic Benefits

• The Finance function is ready to meet the expected increase in data volumes
• Business benefit of more detailed and accurate analysis and reporting
• Release of staff time equivalent to over £200,000 over a 2 year period
• Reduction of manual intervention and faster planning cycle time
• Staff time redeployed onto higher value tasks, such as detailed analysis and reporting
• Rapid turnaround on strategic plan changes within hours rather than days

Robert Gothan
The CEO of Accountagility comments

“The business now has the flexibility to adapt rules to meet the demands of the business as it evolves. ORYX Plan removed the need to manually input data. We therefore delivered a cost and resource effective solution.”

Expense Allocations that reduce costs

How ORYX Expenses improved the expense allocations process and gave greater visibility and reporting to the business at a world leading Insurance company

The company’s old expense allocation model comprised of multiple linked spreadsheets and required significant manual input. It left the business struggling to control unapproved allocations, and without a way to reconcile back to the original entries.

How did finance add control over its expense allocation process to provide better visibility and reporting for the business?

Client Fact File

• Leading global insurance and reinsurance company
• Part of a global group, with assets of $12 billion
• 1,600 employees in almost 40 offices around the globe
• Providers of speciality insurance solutions

Key Project Metrics

• First of multiple project engagements
• Key business benefits achieved:
  • Automation of allocation model, removing all manual input
  • Annual cost benefit of £50,000
  • Significant reduction in man hours freeing up resources to higher value tasks
  • Flexibility to capture new requirements as the business evolves

Background

The processing, categorisation and allocation of expenditure items was performed by using multiple linked spreadsheets. This caused frustration and inefficiencies for both the Group and Operational finance teams.

With every input manually keyed in and submitted by the business units, it was not possible to trace the link between the input data and the source ledger data. And with the allocation methodology undocumented, staff involved in the process were left confused, with some methods being employed that hadn’t been formally agreed with the business.

Similarly, as allocation data only resided in the original spreadsheet, it was difficult to consolidate or include it within other reports for analysis.

In addition, the lack of flexibility to change the allocation logic, and the lack of transparency created more work and added further frustrations between finance and the business owners

The Project

After being invited to undertake an audit of the existing process, Accountagility proposed a solution that would resolve the shortcomings of the existing system. A rules-based allocation model was offered that would deliver a fair and correct distribution of expenses for each business unit, so that true costs could be recorded and profitability accurately assessed.

ORYX Expenses introduced an allocation methodology that was formalised into a succinct set of rules that could be reviewed and agreed by all relevant parties. The introduction of automating and validating data directly from the source systems removed the need for manual data entry, and significantly improved the quality of data (undetected errors was a particular pain-point of the old system).

Key process controls ensured allocation output reconciled back to the full source transaction, flagging any unallocated transactions to be raised as exceptions. This gave the business full traceability, and with all data now stored in one database, analysis and reports were readily available, including full drill to source audit trail

The ORYX Solution

• ORYX Expenses
• Single platform solution for cost allocation
• Part of a full suite of solutions for the Finance function that manages expense allocations efficiently across the organisation

Accountagility replaced the spreadsheet-based expense allocation process with a succinct set of rules that reconciled back to the source transaction. This provided a full audit trail and access to detailed analysis and custom reporting facilities.

Key Outcomes

The Accountagility solution exceeded the original expectations of the client by:

• Acquiring and validating all data automatically, removing quality issues
• Formalising the allocation methodology, removing inconsistent rules and bad practices
• Fully automating reconciliations, with full audit trail back to the source expense data
• Providing on demand reports to the business, and enabling deep level analysis
• Capturing new business requirements by easily modifying the allocation rules

Strategic Benefits

• The Finance function now provides process visibility and has full buy-in from the business
• Improved accuracy and simpler reconciliation of the allocation output
• Substantially reduced effort to process expenses and a shorter time cycle required to process them, releasing staff time equivalent to over £50,000 per annum
• Staff time redeployed onto higher value tasks, such as detailed analysis and reporting
• The ability to rapidly respond to new business requirements

Robert Gothan
The CEO of Accountagility comments

“By implementing a clear methodology, the business now has consistent results, greater transparency, and the ability to analyse its data. ORYX Expenses removed the need to manually input data, and supported the business in reconciling allocations efficiently.”

The science of compliance

How ORYX reduced risk and improved analysis and information process challenges for a major European bank

Before finding ORYX, risk systems and reconciliations at this global firm absorbed such large chunks of staff time that inefficiency and frustration was a regular experience.

How did they free up resources, produce cost savings, and introduce a fresh approach to automating their risk system?

Client Fact File

• A global firm of hundreds of individual Banking entities
• Specialist of wealth and asset management and investment banking with over a century of heritage
• Provider of financial services to private, corporate and institutional clients
• Presence throughout all major finance centres across more than 50 countries
• Employer of tens of thousands of people globally

Key Project Metrics

• Multiple project engagements
• Key business benefits achieved:
  • Streamlining and automation of system release testing
  • Savings of an estimated $1m (USD) per annum
  • Redeployment of resources to higher value tasks
  • Accurate reconciliations

Background

The UK based finance arm of this organisation faced significant challenges to improve analysis and streamline the processes of their risk system.

With approximately 26 changes to the bank’s risks systems being processed every year, there was a strong desire to improve the Release Process Automation facility within the Finance function. For every change initiated, comprehensive testing, detailed analysis and stringent signoff was required, all of which absorbed valuable resources from the highly skilled finance team.

Spreadsheets were used for the testing of each release, and this was widely recognised as not effective for the detection and prevention of errors. Additionally, the tight deadlines afforded little time to perform satisfactory testing, leading to staff resorting to best endeavours and second guesses about the perceived risk areas.

This highly complicated process also triggered significant costs to the business due the skills and efforts required from key members of the team to be involved throughout the process.

Accountagility worked closely with the finance team to replace spreadsheet based testing with an automated solution. This encompassed new processes which enabled all of the data population to be tested.

The Project

During a short consultation period, Accountagility undertook a review of the departments existing risk system practises and assessed their future requirements and areas for improvement. A subsequent Release Process Automation project was initiated delivering a solution to reduce the cost of performing RISK system releases. A tool was defined, developed and implemented that allowed Test Engineers and Business Analysts to collaborate on functional requirements or rules that could be embedded directly into the comparison results and executed in a logical and repeatable fashion.

The ORYX Solution

• ORYX Platform
• Process automation suite of 70 tools
• Part of a full suite of solutions for the Finance function that reduce risk and deliver cost savings of up to 80%

Key Outcomes

The project delivered wide reaching benefits for the department enabling the production of accurate reconciliations by predicting the impact of the system change against the new system values.

Expectations were captured as a set of rules in advance of the release, this knowledge was swiftly added to the testing process. Testing covered the entire trade and system data population, rather than sample based testing which was in place beforehand.

Another significant element was the time savings the new system afforded the team, who were then able to spend time on analysing the data and deal with exceptions in an efficient manner. The exception reports allowed the team to focus on problem areas as they arose, and deal with the issue immediately.

Lastly, the exception reports and system tests were retained and stored to meet regulation and audit requirements

Strategic Benefits

The finance function could meet the tight deadlines and implement the frequent changes to the systems.

• Tests could be deployed and run by users on demand in a controlled manner.
• Removal of dependency on specialist staff, with the capacity to analyse and report on the data
• Full process visibility and auditability to meet all regulatory and internal control requirements
• The project released valuable time for staff to be redeployed to analyse and report

Robert Gothan
The CEO of Accountagility comments

“Users wanted flexibility and immediate control over the performance of their processes. This automated solution put the Bank in a position to improve its business process efficiency and accuracy, through greater agility and auditability.”