Modernize finance for greater return

This leading global asset management firm has $1 trillion in assets under management, with a relentless focus on client service and helping clients exceed their investment objectives. To keep pace with today’s environment, its finance organization needed greater agility and flexibility.

It had a legacy on-premises financials platform and manual, paper-driven processes that hampered its performance. The company also had disparate systems for its payroll, human resources, and financial data—representing multiple countries, currencies, companies and business units—so teams struggled to access the data they needed for reporting, forecasting, and analytics to address critical business decisions.

To transform its finance function and position the firm for growth, the company sought to replace its legacy platform with the Workday Financials cloud-based platform, while also integrating data and optimizing processes—on a 12-month timeline. Through our efforts, their finance team modernized its finance organization helping the business better achieve its mission of client focus.

We helped the firm’s finance team address their business challenges, and as a result of the KPMG-led finance transformation (enabled by Workday Financials) they now have:

• improved agility and efficiency by automating highvolume, time-intensive processes such as bank reconciliations
• improved data access and transparency by integrating the financial data from multiple systems into a single platform 
• real-time journal entries and dynamic reporting
• greatly simplified its chart of accounts, reducing the number of accounts by 74 percent
• reduced risk and improved resolution of discrepancies by creating an audit trail for financial processes
• shortened the financial close process, thanks to the automation of manual processes and the integration of data from disparate systems
• reduced manual effort on cash-basis reporting by 80 percent, due to a creative KPMG solution within the Workday Financials platform
• a modern technology foundation, supporting continued growth and transformation.

Working together with the firm’s executives, KPMG helped shape the vision for a successful finance transformation. Our knowledge of the financial services sector, our heritage in finance and accounting and insight into how to craft an efficient transformation, led to our selection.

We led the implementation of the Workday Financials platform, including the configuration of applications, conversion of financial data from the legacy platform, and other services culminating in a successful deployment for multiple functions, business units, and geographies.

Leveraging the KPMG Powered Enterprise (KPE) for Workday framework, we were able to integrate a business transformation and a technology implementation into a single work stream, helping the client reduce risk and capture value sooner. The KPE framework includes leading practices from other implementations, and includes detailed diagrams and leading practices on process design—from procurement to accounts payable—that helped increase the effectiveness of the implementation while transforming processes.

The firm will be leveraging automation within the finance function. As part of the transformation, KPMG also drew upon its advisory experience in technology that extends Workday’s cloud financials platform. We helped them select and integrate a new vendor for accounts payable invoice processing, which included robotic process automation in the design by adding invoice capture and coding technology to Workday’s accounts payable functionality.

Choose an advisory firm that serves as a seamless extension of your team

A successful finance transformation is based not just on a firm’s capabilities and knowledge – but also on its professionals’ immersion and collaboration with the client team. The executives of this particular firm wanted experienced and trusted advisors who understood their business and fit into their corporate culture; they found them in KPMG.

Engage business stakeholders in process design

During complex technology implementations, companies often rush through process design so they can dive into the new system. But it is critical to first consider the way data will flow through a financial process and, importantly, involve end users in the process design. These users will need to absorb the change and buy into the new way of doing things.

Use finance transformation to enable strategic decisions

With a big-picture view of organizational health, the finance function is in a unique position to correlate data, uncover new insights, and help the business answer critical questions. With Workday Financials, KPMG can help bring data to life through meaningful dashboards and reports, from spend trends in procurement to foreign exchange exposure in treasury management.