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TopDown Consulting Delivers Successful Oracle Hyperion Financial Management Deployment for Hubbell Incorporated
HUBBELLCASE STUDY
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About Hubbell Incorporated
Hubbell Incorporated is an international manufacturer of quality electrical and electronic products for a broad range of non-residential and residential construction, industrial and utility applications. With 2012 revenues of $3.0 billion, Hubbell Incorporated operates manufacturing facilities in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Puerto Rico, Mexico, the People’s Republic of China (“China”), Italy, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Australia. Hubbell also participates in joint ventures in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and maintains offices in Singapore, China, India, Mexico, South Korea, and countries in the Middle East. The corporate headquarters is located in Shelton, CT.
Project Overview: Streamlining a Global Close and Consolidation Process
Hubbell Incorporated is a global, publicly traded company that needed a powerful enterprise performance management (EPM) solution to streamline its current financial close and consolidation process. The company had been using Hyperion Enterprise, but determined it needed to upgrade to Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) for two primary reasons: first, it had outgrown Enterprise. While Hubbell’s Enterprise user base of more than 150 people worldwide could still use Enterprise, work couldn’t be completed as efficiently as was necessary. For example, the current loading tool would only allow access by one entity at a time, and with Hubbell reporting approximately 100 different entities, this often created challenges and delays in close. Hubbell also hoped to achieve more detailed insights into their business with the new deployment. The second reason was that Oracle was discontinuing premier-level support for Enterprise in April 2013.
TopDown Consulting Delivers Successful Oracle Hyperion Financial Management Deployment for Hubbell Incorporated
Combination of TopDown’s deep technical expertise and effective collaboration with Hubbell Incorporated leads to project being delivered on time, and on budget
Project Objectives:
• Replace Oracle Hyperion Enterprise with Hyperion Financial Management
• Add planning and budgeting capabilities for future use
Key Features:
• Consolidations• Financial Reporting• Financial Data Quality
Management• Planning (for future use)• Budgeting (for future use)
Key Benefits:
• Multi-dimensional capabilities• Rapid assimilation of
acquisitions• Simultaneous data loads at
end of month
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Selecting an Oracle Hyperion Solutions Partner
Hubbell interviewed several potential Oracle Hyperion solution partners, but TopDown Consulting was the clear leader. “We reached out to our network for references, and received many positive comments about TopDown’s previous work,” said Steven Beers, Director, Financial Planning and Analysis at Hubbell. “During the pitch process, TopDown presented alongside representatives from Oracle, and we were impressed with the strong alignment between the two companies, as well as by the depth of knowledge of the TopDown consultants. Their commitment and passion for creating a solution that meets our needs was clearly evident during our conversations.”
TopDown was also the only vendor in the selection process that was confident it could meet Hubbell’s aggressive project deadline. The team would have only eight months from beginning to end to make the new system operational in time for year-end close.
Design and Implementation
Hubbell created a project team that included an executive sponsor, a project manager, a business process owner to drive the project, key stakeholders from the businesses within their two segments in the company, and the team from TopDown Consulting. This group was involved in every aspect of the project to ensure all necessary requirements were included in the initial design, to provide input on decisions throughout the implementation, and to help facilitate training and user adoption during the roll-out phase.
“We have a structured and proven project delivery methodology here at Hubbell, and we were pleased to see that the TopDown Project Success Methodology includes many of the same elements,” said Paul Rychlik, Director of Projects at Hubbell Incorporated. “The TopDown approach was adaptable and fit in seamlessly with our process.”
The process began with an intense, co-located planning and design session involving all key contributors for the project. During the weeklong session, the team made all critical decisions, with significant attention paid to the project scope, requirements, and key milestones.
The success of this session was due in large part to TopDown Consulting’s preparation. A week before the session, TopDown led an “HFM 101” training for all participants of the pending planning and design session. This positioned them well for contributing to the design workshop. TopDown also worked with Hubbell to create the kick-off presentation and supporting materials.
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The top priority for the design session was to create a streamlined and efficient system. After ten years of using Enterprise, there was plenty of feedback available about what worked and what needed to change. The team reviewed requirements, reporting needs, and identified unnecessary and obsolete processes that could be removed. The team also agreed on new dimensions, hierarchies, data integration sources and rules, and best practices for achieving maximum system performance.
“Our goal was to design an application that met Hubbell’s current requirements while allowing for future growth,” said Brian Willson, TopDown Consulting Solution Architect and project lead.
By flattening the entity reporting and account dimensions, the team also successfully overhauled the entity structures. “The proper utilization of dimensions can either make or break these projects,” said Mr. Rychlik. “We received very solid leadership from TopDown on how to best utilize the dimensions. These are bedrock decisions, and if you don’t get them right, it will cause problems downstream.”
Design session highlights include:
• Streamlined entity hierarchy from 5000 to 200• Grouped four main hierarchies according to business unit• Redesigned entity-based cost centers, plants and functional areas
reporting to improve consolidation performance• Created a hierarchy-based chart of accounts• Automated intercompany matching and elimination• Added custom dimensions such as business unit/brand reporting,
plant-level reporting, and expense-detail reporting• Improved reporting capabilities by adding data types, including GL,
ADJ, STATS, and ELIM
Regarding TopDown’s follow-up to the design session, Mr. Rychlik said, “We had a design blue print from TopDown that was delivered in record time—just a few weeks after the workshop. We were ahead of schedule right out of the gate.”
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Creating a Solid Infrastructure for the New Deployment
A component of the Enterprise to HFM upgrade was a significant update to the infrastructure. Hubbell was running Enterprise on a single server with a proprietary Hyperion database. There was a big delta between the server requirements and size of infrastructure needed to run HFM, including an Oracle database and multiple servers (some virtual). This created a complex landscape that required specialized knowledge to implement and upload HFM.
“We pay particular attention to application performance during our testing and work closely with the technical services team to ensure the environment is operating at peak efficiency,” said Mr. Willson.
We relied upon guidance from TopDown’s technical services team, working in close collaboration with Hubbell’s “techies”, to load and fine-tune HFM. The application has been rock-solid since our go-live,” said Mr. Rychlik.
Training a Global User Base Working against a very tight delivery deadline left little time to train Hubbell’s more than 150 users worldwide. Using a “train the trainer” methodology, TopDown trained the core group of managers who could in turn train their teams. TopDown also created a small library of key resources and reference materials.
Benefits of the New System and of Working with TopDown Consulting
Today, Hubbell Incorporated is reaping the benefits of its transition to HFM. With centrally located mapping tables, multiple users can easily load data at the same time, compared to the previous one-at-a-time approach. HFM also enables Hubbell to segregate and modify data in the GL, and then reload the changes without affecting the existing data. In addition, the reports and tracking abilities in FDM and HFM have given Hubbell more visibility into the business, and insight into how the process is going. With the new streamlined entity structure, they can easily add future acquisitions using the new mapping structures.
“The recipe for success on projects like this is good software with a sound architecture combined with extremely competent internal resources at Hubbell, and an equally competent partner in TopDown,” said Mr. Beers. “I can’t compliment the service level of TopDown enough. They were the quintessential definition of a partner, and they delivered this project on time, on budget, and produced excellent results.”
Next Steps
Now that the team at Hubbell is comfortable with HFM they plan to turn on a lot more of the system’s functionality, including: data validation, and process checks so users cannot submit data using incorrect processes or miss data because they didn’t follow certain criteria.
Also, TopDown is planning another design and planning session to kick-off the implementation of planning, budgeting and forecasting design workshop.
© 2013 TopDown Consulting Incorporated. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.TopDown Consulting, TopDown Consulting logo, and TopDown Consulting Migra-tion Manager are trademarks or registered trademarks of TopDown Consulting in the United States. All other company and product names may be trade names or trademarks of their respective owners.
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TopDown Consulting, Inc. serves clients nationally and internationally from our San Francisco headquarters. For more information or to inquire about our services, please contact us.
About TopDown Consulting
Founded in 2000, TopDown Consulting is the acknowledged leader in designing, implementing, and deploying EPM solutions. TopDown has the experience, expertise, and proven approach to deliver successful implementations for Global 2000 clients. Our consultants average 20 years of Hyperion and industry experience with a complete range of skill sets, including: solution and system architects, CPAs, finance executives, MBAs, analysts, and project managers. TopDown’s proven Project Success Methodology provides a customizable strategic framework for guiding and measuring project initiatives, enabling us to deliver solutions that meet our clients’ current and future business and technology needs and their unique corporate culture.
