A U. S. regional power utility
Power and utilities
Upgrade compliance along with new billing and service options
SAP S/4HANA IS-U
When senior management at a U.S. power utility serving millions of customers decided to replace an outdated customer information system (CIS) platform, they didn’t think small. Along with the latest industry-specific software from SAP, the company commissioned three leading IT consultants to design and implement a new system offering far greater functionality. KPMG was one of them, assigned not only to oversee quality assurance to help the client manage program-level risks, but also to address a key risk challenge by integrating application security and controls to meet Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) regulatory requirements.
After more than two years of work, the company successfully launched a new CIS and billing platform that quickly gained the trust of a range of stakeholders. Customers are getting new online options for paying bills, monitoring power usage, and receiving alerts. Management and investors are positioned to benefit by adding new services and rate structures. And, regulators are seeing accurate, detailed documentation on rapidly changing compliance requirements.
in reported SOX risks
of controls are now automated
customers have data protection
Click on each part of the journey to learn more about our client’s transformation.
Looking for the “one way” forward after acquisition-fueled growth.
Albertsons is committed to “one way.” Meaning that, as large as the company becomes, it aims to remain unified in its vision and in the systems and tools that support it.
Acquisition-fueled growth naturally opens the door to “many ways.” By 2019, different divisions and subsidiaries had their own back-office solutions. People, processes, and data were becoming more siloed.
A different kind of company might have assumed that decentralized processes are an acceptable consequence of multiple acquisitions. Or that you can’t be one of the biggest industry players and move with startling speed and agility when it comes to acquisitions. But accepting trade-offs like those is not the Albertsons way.
Company-wide opportunities
Finance Opportunities
HR Opportunities
290,000+ Albertsons employees come together every day in the cloud.
Today, cashiers at 2,200 stores all log their hours via the same mobile app. That data flows seamlessly to payroll, and across the enterprise-- where it’s available for everyone from store managers making data-driven staffing projections to CFOs reviewing budgets.
Back-office staff spend less time on manual processes and more on analyzing data in ways that help lower costs and improve performance every day, and inform due diligence during acquisitions.
HR executives and business managers find it easy to access candidate information, share observations and schedule interviews, quickly and easily moving the right candidates through the hiring process.
And candidates who become new hires, continue through the same efficient, cloud-based environment as they complete onboarding and get to work—already a part of Albertsons’ “one way.”
Company-wide success
Finance Successes
HR Successes
Making sure the “one way” continues to be the best way.
Long before the go-live date, Albertsons was collaborating with Oracle and KPMG about future initiatives. They wanted to know what to expect from upcoming product releases and how they should be planning to leverage new functionality.
The company’s agile mindset combined with its investment in Oracle Cloud and KPMG Powered Enterprise will keep it in a position to continue evolving, always finding the best way forward as one, strong enterprise.
Finance Vision
HR Vision
We enabled the organization to reap more benefits from their investment in SAP, taking advantage of the opportunity to transform the control landscape even as the business was transforming its systems and processes.
– Jonathan Levitt, Director Advisory, KPMG Advisory GRC Technology
Seeking a better model for security and controls
With another contractor assigned to manage the planning, process development and technical implementation of the project as a whole, the KPMG Risk team focused on identifying existing risks in application security and SOX controls, defining how these risks should be remedied, and testing new approaches and technology in advance. Key steps included:
New structures and technologies deliver real results
After the design and validation phases of the project, our risk team began building a new security structure aimed at rationalizing and consolidating financial reporting risks in order to eliminate redundancies and create a more clearly defined risk landscape. Achieving this required:
The new SAP-based system was successfully rolled out in early 2021, winning fast acceptance from consumers and employees, and establishing the client as an industry leader in customer support. Key security and compliance outcomes included:
Taken together, these measures not only made the client’s risk and compliance structure more accurate, efficient, and adaptable but also advanced trust among management, employees, customers, and regulators.
Monitoring today and planning for tomorrow
Post rollout, KPMG continued to provide support and stabilization services to the client through the end of 2021. We also established continuous tracking and monitoring functions for security, controls, and GRC.
To summarize how the new system had performed to date, our risk team also deployed data analytics in the form of process mining to show the client how processes had already been improved and where further efficiencies might be gained in the future.
SAP’s S/4HANA ERP platform and its industry solution for utilities (IS-U) helps digital transformation deliver real benefits by increasing efficiency, simplifying processes, and enabling delivery of new services. But implementing SAP’s solutions also means highly regulated utilities must adopt more robust risk, security, and compliance strategies. Learn more:
Let’s talk about where you are now and your goals for the future.
