Financial transformation consulting
A strong finance function is at the heart of any successful business, so it’s vital to get a finance transformation right. The Berkeley partnership has worked with many of the world’s leading companies on their most challenging finance transformation programmes – from early vision, strategy and business case, right through the hard yards of delivery.
The drive and leadership against a programme that is up against the organisation's natural inertia to adapt was exceptional. The Berkeley Partnership brought the experience, thought leadership and initiative to really drive things forward. Looking forward to supplement the team with Berkeley's guidance and experience again in the future.”
A media and entertainment sector client
Drivers for change for the modern finance function
Finance leaders are buffeted by change – much of which is outside of their direct control. We cover some of the key drivers for change in more detail below.
Enabling less time to be spent on the mechanics of the reporting cycle, more on business support / partnering.
Improving the efficiency of transactional reporting and streamlining end-to-end processes (especially handoffs between teams) will mean less time used gathering and validating data. Instead, it can be spent on analysis, insight and business partnering.
The majority of controls are often still highly manual. However, there’s clear movement towards using automation and new technologies such as robotic process automation, that offer significant potential efficiencies.
Finance is fast adapting to partner with the business and deliver efficiencies and value on a continuous basis. Streamlining across group / corporate finance and other federated finance teams continues swiftly. The historic lines between financial, commercial and sales operations roles may start to change. There’s an increased focus on recruiting and retaining the best talent in ‘front office’ finance roles.
Finance shared services continues its evolution. This can be due to any one or a combination of the following factors: expanding scope and remit; a response to M&A activity; changing the insource versus outsource supply mix; more automation; seeking further advantage from low cost locations; and/or integrating into a multi-functional shared service environment.
Traditional reporting is being transformed by modern cloud analytics tools (including data visualisation and artificial intelligence (AI)). These tools empower greater business self-service and can leverage large amounts of structured and unstructured internal and external data. Finance may or may not own the analytics capability, but must be able to drive value from the data.
Traditional finance ERP systems are being transformed and replaced by “new wave” ERP (sometimes known as post-modern ERP, or digital operations platforms). These can unlock real value for finance functions – such as greater agility and accessibility, and improved analytics. Automation tools are also being implemented to drive further efficiencies.
There’s a greater focus on a slick, accessible and more digital experience for both finance staff and end users through tools such as Workday Financials and Concur. There’s a rise in the use of AI-powered chat-bots for quality assurance and multilingual support. Business is adapting to ‘millennial’ hires who expect to do more for themselves/online – but only if the user experience meets high consumer standards.
The finance function clearly has a key role in audit and risk, and close to the top of most corporate risk registers (and on audit committee agendas) is typically cyber and information security.
The Berkeley Partnership’s financial transformation service
We help finance and technology executives understand how best to move their business forward – and we work closely with them to make it happen.”
Through a combination of industry and business knowledge of finance functional understanding, technology expertise and transformational change, our consultants are able to effectively navigate complex subject matter and align varied stakeholders into cohesive, clear plans, no matter how influential the drivers are for change.
Finance transformation expertise with sector insight
We offer our clients a financial transformation consulting service with a compelling combination of industry and business knowledge relevant to their sector. We combine this with finance functional understanding, technology expertise and the transformational change know-how to make it all happen.
With our ‘low volume, high value’ model, we won’t overwhelm with large teams or take months to produce results. By only using one or two highly experienced and high calibre people, we can assess and turn around major programmes in weeks, or help you cut through to a core strategy in a matter of days.
Above all, this is about sound judgement – doing enough analysis and drawing on our experience to help our clients make a confident decision on what’s right for them. We work as a close-knit part of your team, transforming your finance function ‘with you, not to you’, and getting to results that have real ownership and buy-in.”
Ben Wildman
Our clients often ask us…
Question 1
How can I use finance to drive my business value, enable growth and drive cost efficiency?
Question 2
How can my finance function give me timely, accurate insights to help me make better business decisions?
Question 3
How do we define and mobilise a finance transformation?
Question 4
How can I understand if and how I should unite my finance, IT and HR functions as a single shared service?
Question 5
What’s the best way to determine my strategy for customer billing systems?
Question 6
How can I simplify my finance processes to increase efficiencies?
Question 7
How can I define and manage a major financial reporting programme?
Question 8
How do we develop a strategic roadmap of finance projects?
Question 9
How do I transition from a legacy finance ERP to a new state-of-the-art ERP technology?
Client stories
Dow Jones
Global financial information and news publisher, Dow Jones, recognised it needed a step-change in its global finance function. Technology had moved on and if the company didn’t adapt its systems and processes, it would face growing inefficiencies and lowered productivity, which would ultimately impact market competitiveness and the bottom line.
Dow Jones chose Berkeley for our experience in finance transformation, programme delivery, and leadership of large-scale enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations – expertise that would complement in-house capabilities. Our London team led the initial assessment and immediate follow-on activity, before the work moved to our New York office. From there, our US team led the program through mobilisation, implementation, and post go-live support.
Unilever - financial reporting
Unilever wanted to redefine its approach to management reporting, extending existing SAP tools to deliver a simpler and faster European financial close and management reporting timetable. We helped them evaluate their options, define plans and create the business case to secure funding for the project and then took over mobilisation and management of the 50-strong global vendor/client team which would deliver it.
Unilever - managing project turnaround
One of the world’s leading fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, selling its products in over 190 countries. The Unilever of today has been created over many years of mergers and acquisitions. While these have enabled the group to grow, they have brought with them complications, not least for the group’s IT function.
The function's response has been to try to simplify its IT infrastructure. One important objective has been to transition to a single global SAP financial and management reporting platform, named Victory. We helped them achieve this goal, by reviewing the project underway to deliver Victory, before supporting a project turnaround and ultimately project managing it through to a successful delivery.
Global real estate services company
We worked with one of the world’s largest, US-based global real estate services companies to develop a strategic roadmap of Finance projects.
This work was commissioned by the Global Executive Board, who sought to enable prioritisation of investment decisions, ensure strategic allocation of capital, and improve financial forecasting. Over 50 projects were identified and assessed as part of the final roadmap, with a total budget of ~ $95M. We designed the process and tools for building the roadmap, detailed the next steps required following our engagement, and outlined the approach to subsequently implement a strategic portfolio management capability in order to deliver the roadmap.
Top multinational mining company
We led the finance transformation programme for a top multinational mining company, with the goal of transforming the Finance organisation into best-in-class amongst industry peers, operating as a true strategic partner to the business.
The programme involved target operating model development; performance management strategy; organisation design; standardisation of governance, processes and controls; global business services design and implementation; and the associated technology enablement and change management.
Global consumer goods organisation
We helped a global consumer goods organisation deliver a significant Finance transformation across over 100 countries.
This involved both implementing a new suite of SAP systems for financial consolidation and all group management and financial reporting, and also streamlining their financial reporting by consolidating the group financial results directly from the source ledgers in each of their 600+ Legal Entities around the world.
Global media conglomerate
We helped a leading global media conglomerate understand if - and how - they should bring together a finance shared service and a single finance IT platform across their three key publishing business units in the UK, USA and Australia.
This Finance Platforms and Shared Services Assessment defined the future landscape and the business case for such a transformation allowing the CFOs and CTOs of each business, and at group level, make an informed decision about how to move forward.
Major publishing and financial information firm
We helped a major, global publishing and financial information firm (based in New York) define and mobilise their Finance Transformation.
We worked with them to define a clear and aligned view of the Current State of their finance process and systems landscape (including all pain points and opportunities), a Target Future State, and a business case and roadmap to move between the two. We then went on to help them mobilise the programme to deliver this change.
Their professionalism was top notch … I've gone through a number of these types of projects in my career and this one superseded all. High calibre people with the experience and intelligence to get to the crux of the issue.”
VP Finance Operations
Client stories
Global financial information and news publisher, Dow Jones, recognised it needed a step-change in its global finance function. Technology had moved on and if the company didn’t adapt its systems and processes, it would face growing inefficiencies and lowered productivity, which would ultimately impact market competitiveness and the bottom line.
Dow Jones chose Berkeley for our experience in finance transformation, programme delivery, and leadership of large-scale enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations – expertise that would complement in-house capabilities. Our London team led the initial assessment and immediate follow-on activity, before the work moved to our New York office. From there, our US team led the program through mobilisation, implementation, and post go-live support.
Unilever wanted to redefine its approach to management reporting, extending existing SAP tools to deliver a simpler and faster European financial close and management reporting timetable. We helped them evaluate their options, define plans and create the business case to secure funding for the project and then took over mobilisation and management of the 50-strong global vendor/client team which would deliver it.
One of the world’s leading fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, selling its products in over 190 countries. The Unilever of today has been created over many years of mergers and acquisitions. While these have enabled the group to grow, they have brought with them complications, not least for the group’s IT function.
The function's response has been to try to simplify its IT infrastructure. One important objective has been to transition to a single global SAP financial and management reporting platform, named Victory. We helped them achieve this goal, by reviewing the project underway to deliver Victory, before supporting a project turnaround and ultimately project managing it through to a successful delivery.
We worked with one of the world’s largest, US-based global real estate services companies to develop a strategic roadmap of Finance projects.
This work was commissioned by the Global Executive Board, who sought to enable prioritisation of investment decisions, ensure strategic allocation of capital, and improve financial forecasting. Over 50 projects were identified and assessed as part of the final roadmap, with a total budget of ~ $95M. We designed the process and tools for building the roadmap, detailed the next steps required following our engagement, and outlined the approach to subsequently implement a strategic portfolio management capability in order to deliver the roadmap.
We led the finance transformation programme for a top multinational mining company, with the goal of transforming the Finance organisation into best-in-class amongst industry peers, operating as a true strategic partner to the business.
The programme involved target operating model development; performance management strategy; organisation design; standardisation of governance, processes and controls; global business services design and implementation; and the associated technology enablement and change management.
Service
Finance strategy and operating model
Service
Target operating model design
We helped a global consumer goods organisation deliver a significant Finance transformation across over 100 countries.
This involved both implementing a new suite of SAP systems for financial consolidation and all group management and financial reporting, and also streamlining their financial reporting by consolidating the group financial results directly from the source ledgers in each of their 600+ Legal Entities around the world.
Service
Finance strategy and operating model
Sector
Consumer goods
We helped a leading global media conglomerate understand if - and how - they should bring together a finance shared service and a single finance IT platform across their three key publishing business units in the UK, USA and Australia.
This Finance Platforms and Shared Services Assessment defined the future landscape and the business case for such a transformation allowing the CFOs and CTOs of each business, and at group level, make an informed decision about how to move forward.
We helped a major, global publishing and financial information firm (based in New York) define and mobilise their Finance Transformation.
We worked with them to define a clear and aligned view of the Current State of their finance process and systems landscape (including all pain points and opportunities), a Target Future State, and a business case and roadmap to move between the two. We then went on to help them mobilise the programme to deliver this change.
Their professionalism was top notch … I've gone through a number of these types of projects in my career and this one superseded all. High calibre people with the experience and intelligence to get to the crux of the issue.””
VP Finance Operations
