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Call for change

Deploying for independence

Following its acquisition, a Sydney-based global fund manager needed to fully break away from its previous company’s systems and adopt a new cloud-based IT service desk, core financials and HR system. Global visibility and transparency of all financial entities was essential, along with a simplified general ledger structure, a chart of accounts that reflects the business accurately, and more advanced analytical reporting. The fund manager also wanted to eliminate regional differences and consolidate the business following years of acquisitions. Workday Financials provided the right flexibility and, together with Accenture, the business set about creating a clean slate.

When tech meets human ingenuity

Collaborating across continents during a pandemic

The project began just as Australia went into the first of a series of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Accenture helped the client seamlessly move to a 100% virtual project, beginning with a series of workshops that broke down day-to-day processes to identify opportunities for standardization in a new financial data model. Accenture ensured teams hesitant to move away from customized processes understood the full potential of Workday and how standardization would enable far greater global visibility.

Accenture worked closely with the client to adhere to a tight configuration and prototyping schedule, followed by a four-week-long testing period and training. Workday collaborated to provide quality and delivery assurance and ensure best practice was always followed.

A valuable difference

Rapidly revolutionizing the everyday

Workday Financial Management was deployed in just seven months across ten global locations. Thanks to the client’s highly skilled team and Accenture’s comprehensive change management program, it quickly grasped the new system and improvements to the business were immediately felt:

  • Invoices are no longer manual but entered into Workday and instantly routed to the relevant person.
  • Workday Prism ensures historical data is easily accessible, enabling advanced analytics and automated reports, with no need to access legacy systems.
  • A simplified general ledger structure and automated, seamless payment processes eliminate risk and financial closing has reduced to just three days.

The client says Accenture has set the standard that it holds all other partners to, and asked Accenture to take on application management support for at least two years.

7

Workday Financial Management was deployed in just seven months.

3

The client can now close accounts in just three days, reducing month-end close timelines by 70%.

~1,000

workers now use the system across 10 global locations.

Meet the team

Jonathan Hicks

Client Account Lead
LinkedIn

Justin Elliott

Lead – Workday Business Group, ANZ
LinkedIn

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