Background

The client is a large, nationwide research organization comprised of geographically separated and independent R&D labs. Client funding was tagged for defined research and development efforts, and tracked through a complex accounting structure. Each lab had a separate financial organization that reported to a legacy data mart. To support this, each lab had developed internal proprietary financial accounting systems operating with different business rules.

Challenge

The independent operating model made it impossible for the organization’s leadership to understand the true financial status of the enterprise. Budgeting efforts were cumbersome and strategic planning was non-existent. As well, departmental reporting from independent systems resulted in delivery of inconsistent information, redundancies and errors.

Solution

The project began with an analysis of the data elements, business rules, and processes to identify commonality. The team identified functional and technical requirements needed to replace independent reporting applications. The execution followed with deployment of a common system and implementation of business intelligence best-practices. Finally, an ad-hoc reporting engine was constructed using the Cognos suite that allowed management to track the financial health of the organization for real-time decision support.

Results

Divisional organizations followed a centrally defined business and data collection process, providing management the ability to extract meaningful data across the organization. Business intelligence reports allowed for accurate budgeting and improved fund acquisition/distribution. Further value was realized as the new system eliminated system and human capital redundancy thereby improving organizational productivity.