A master data based Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) solution will give you alignment and ensure consistency across your
systems; creating a stable environment in which we will deliver a truly integrated yet flexible set of financial applications.
Our unique and proven approach focuses on the importance of the relationships between your business critical applications, core business structures, reports and interfaces.
Who are we?
We are a UK based professional services company that specialises in delivering fully integrated financial solutions.
What do we do?
We work with you to prioritise your strategic business challenges. We define a set of targeted financial initiatives that will provide tangible benefits to a realistic timescale. Then we will deliver them. All the while bringing to the relationship expertise ranging from business analysis, strategic planning, change management and
How do we work?
We work closely with our clients for the duration of the project. Combining our clients’ unique business knowledge with our highly skilled consultants in a structured framework ensures we deliver a solution fit for purpose, on time and to budget. Post implementation we provide our clients with technical support and guidance as their preferred solution partner.
The work performed by
Seismi and their partners
has been expertly
managed and executed in
all areas. We believe that
the solution they have
delivered is world-class.
James Beams
Enterprise Performance Management through master data consistency and optimised applications.
Our frame
of reference
Company overview Develop Technical Solution Demonstrate Validation Verification Deliver Technical Solution Direct Project Planning Project Monitoring & Control
Risk Management Decision Analysis & Resolution
Configuration Management Process & Product Quality Assurance
Measurement & Analysis
Define
Requirements Development Requirements Management
Design
Technical Solution Why us?
We are recognised as a specialist in Oracle Hyperion and as such we are ideally placed to implement financial solutions that are flexible, robust, scalable and automated.
Our points of difference: • Founded on expertise • Differentiated by master data
centricity
• Supported by best practice • Actioned by intuitive consultants • Evidenced by customer reference • Recognised by Oracle
accreditations
Project management
Our project management methodology is based on the International CMMI standard. Covering development and support, this standard gives clients the confidence that our services are structured and will deliver on time and to budget.
Advisory Implementation Infrastructure Training Support
Solution Architecture Application Review Infrastructure Review
Chart Design & Conversion Health Check
Governance & Integration Financial Close &
Consolidation Planning, Budgeting
& Forecasting Reporting & Analytics
Infrastructure Consulting Managed Technical Services Hosted Environments Classroom Training On-site Training Virtual & Online Training
Custom User Training
Application Support Maintenance & Administration Critical Period Cover Our services
Our solutions cover 5 key service areas which are underpinned by comprehensive control structures.
Our clients
Contact us
Whether you are overhauling your finance systems, implementing a new EPM application, or planning to upgrade to the latest release or Cloud services. We will partner you for the journey to help reduce risk, shorten implementation time and provide industry leading practises to maximise return on your technology investment.
To discuss your strategic and financial solutions opportunities for your business please contact our Client Services Team. Seismi Ltd, Hartham Park,
Corsham, SN13 0RP E. [email protected]
T. +44 (0)1249 691 211 www.seismi.net
An Oracle Data Relationship Governance Journey
ICAP Success Story
Agenda
Using DRM to manage change
The business drivers
DRM/DRG implementation approach
Q & A
Complex governance in a global organisation
Lessons learnt & leading practices
Simon has 12 years’ experience working with the Hyperion product set and has been at ICAP for the last 4 years. He began as an Hyperion Enterprise administrator and now has a detailed understanding of HFM, FDM and Financial Reports. Simon’s in depth understanding of ICAP’s finance community, processes and challenges made him the ideal person to lead the DRM/DRG project in ICAP
From ICAP
Simon Leggate
Systems Administrator
ICAP plc is a leading markets operator and provider of post trade risk
and information services. ICAP is an integral part of the global financial
system, providing electronic execution, broking, risk mitigation,
messaging and information services to wholesale market participants.
The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a
constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
#Photo#
Jerome began his career working in business process management and integration. He has applied this detailed understanding of the importance of efficient processes to become a leader and innovator in financial systems integration and master data management. He complements his expertise in business process with a detailed understanding of a wide range of financial technologies and applications.
From Seismi
Jerome Marcq
Director, Technology
Seismi is a professional services company that specialises in delivering
fully integrated financial solutions to corporate clients. Seismi’s
implementations are underpinned by efficient master data
management leading to flexible, robust and automated solutions.
Seismi provide consultancy, infrastructure, training and support
#Photo#
Context – ICAP’s Financial System Roadmap
ICAP initiated a comprehensive financial transformation programme for a
number of reasons. We wanted to:
update our Oracle Financials system which was end of life;
refresh our chart of accounts to enhance reporting and analysis
capabilities;
consolidate our reporting tools;
improve our master data management process;
improve the end-to-end visibility of data; and
increase our ability to automate data loads between applications.
DRM and DRG were key components of the new toolset to help deliver
against these objectives.
Agenda
Using DRM to manage change
The business drivers
DRM/DRG implementation approach
Q & A
Complex governance in a global organisation
Lessons learnt & leading practices
Inefficient.
Master Data Management in ICAP – Before DRM
Time consuming.
Difficult to manage.
Master Data Management Objectives
Efficient
Transparent
Robust
Empower Master Data Owners – To make their changes within defined boundaries.
Automation - “Zero Touch” or “Lights out” ETL process
Optimise Month-End Close -Through pro-active governance process
Data Transparency - the ability to understand the transactions that underpin reported numbers
Standardised Reports- Standard reports across multiple entities | charts | platforms
Modeling- Understand changes before implementation
Coherence Across Multiple Reporting Views - Enforce coherence of multiple, complex views (financial, management, operational etc.)
Embedded controls - Reduce business risk by improving master data controls
Minimise Failure Points– through enforcing consistency across platforms and interfaces
Acquisition- Rapidly deploy standard EPM solutions to new acquisitions
Compliance- Meet audit & regulatory requirements
Standardise and Optimise Processes – reduce complexity and clarify master data
Agenda
Using DRM to manage change
The business drivers
DRM/DRG implementation approach
Q & A
Complex governance in a global organisation
Lessons learnt & leading practices
Approach
The roadmap was designed to help the transition from old financial
systems to new with minimum impact to business operations.
Agenda
Using DRM to manage change
The business drivers
DRM/DRG implementation approach
Q & A
Complex governance in a global organisation
Lessons learnt & leading practices
Master Data Management Objectives
Efficient
Transparent
Robust
Empower Master Data Owners – To make their changes within defined boundaries.
Automation - “Zero Touch” or
“Lights out” ETL process
Optimise Month-End Close
-Through pro-active governance process
Data Transparency - the ability
to understand the transactions that underpin reported number
Standardised Reports- Standard
reports across multiple entities | charts | platforms
Modeling- Understand changes
before implementation
Coherence Across Multiple
Reporting Views - Enforce
Embedded controls - Reduce
business risk by improving master data controls
Minimise Failure Points–
through enforcing consistency across platforms and interfaces
Acquisition - Rapidly deploy
standard EPM solutions to new acquisitions
Compliance- Meet audit &
regulatory requirements
Standardise and Optimise Processes – reduce complexity and clarify master data
Agenda
Using DRM to manage change
The business drivers
DRM/DRG implementation approach
Q & A
Complex governance in a global organisation
Chart of account with 8 segments.
Statistics
More than 120 DRM users including 80 active DRG users around the
world.
19 regional groups with local ownership of branches of hierarchies.
An average of over 200 DRG requests a month.
Multiple reporting hierarchies based on the chart of account segments.
DRG coordinates and standardises master data workflow activities:
Data Relationship Governance - Overview
Defined user(s) from one or multiple groups must sign off
the request.
The change is applied to the appropriate version.
Please note – Any user at any stage can push back to previous stages,
Business users initiate a change request with one or
multiple items.
Defined users modify items within a request by populating
or modifying attributes.
Submit
Enrich
Approve
Submit
Standard Request
Submitter does not always know the final
node name on submission.
Required justification.
Validation on names, descriptions and
attributes.
Simple approval path.
Commit
Approve
Commit
Multiple reporting views – New Accounts
Simple approval path.
Additional steps to insert all new leaf nodes
to multiple reporting hierarchies.
Multiple validations at each step and one
final step to re-run all validations.
Submit
Approve
Final Validation
US Statutory
Approve
Submit
Approve
Submit
Approve
Submit
Federated Hierarchies - Cost Centres
Regional submitters only have access to their
section of the hierarchy
Requests are then routed to the appropriate
regional approvers
All requests are then approved by Global
Finance.
Approve
Head Count
High Priority Requests - IT Projects
Limited approval path.
New leaf IT projects are created directly in
Production, bypassing monthly master data
cycle.
Automated process to copy new IT Projects
from Production to UAT every night.
Other projects are maintained through
standard processes.
Submit
Commit
Approve
Additional External Documentation - Companies
Companies follow a standard approval
process and can be inserted to reporting
hierarchies.
All companies must be linked to legal
documentation on Sharepoint with all
regulatory information.
Commit
Submit
Approve
Final Validation
Local
Statutory
Master Data Management Objectives
Efficient
Transparent
Robust
Empower Master Data Owners –
To make their changes within defined boundaries.
Automation - “Zero Touch” or
“Lights out” ETL process
Optimise Month-End Close
-Through pro-active governance process
Data Transparency - the ability
to understand the transactions that underpin reported numbers
Standardised Reports- Standard
reports across multiple entities | charts | platforms
Modeling- Understand changes
before implementation
Coherence Across Multiple
Reporting Views - Enforce coherence of multiple, complex views (financial, management, operational etc.)
Embedded controls - Reduce
business risk by improving master data controls
Minimise Failure Points–
through enforcing consistency across platforms and interfaces
Acquisition - Rapidly deploy
standard EPM solutions to new acquisitions
Compliance- Meet audit &
regulatory requirements
Standardise and Optimise
Processes – reduce complexity and clarify master data
Agenda
Using DRM to manage change
The business drivers
DRM/DRG implementation approach
Q & A
Complex governance in a global organisation
Upgrade DRM 11.1.2.3 –
Upgrading DRM in isolation with a new instance of
Shared Services allowed us to deliver the benefits of DRG without requiring the
upgrade of the full EPM suite.
DRG Successful Practices
Encouraging business buy in to workflows –
By involving the business in very
early testing and welcoming suggestions and requests, we encouraged buy in
from key business users early in the implementation phase. This greatly
enhanced the quality of the workflows and adoption by business users.
Detailed and thorough test scripts –
Creating detailed test scripts going
through as many different possible behaviour as possible greatly helped in
delivering high quality workflows.
Lessons Learnt - DRM
Challenge
Lesson Learnt
Not a backend tool – DRM is sometimes perceived as a back end integration tool instead of a front end tool for Finance users.
Business value – To get the best business value out of DRM, get business analysts with experience of what the tool can deliver and your finance users together.
Silo-ed development – Although silo-ed
development of EPM applications can appear more effective, it increases difficulty of adding governance and data integration afterwards and decreases
quality of the overall solution.
Integrated development – EPM solutions designed and delivered with governance and data integration produce more robust and better quality solutions (e.g. GAA cubes and HPCM applications).
Conventions – Different application and users favour different conventions (prefix vs. suffix, separators, & vs. “and”). Although DRM supports these differences
Standard convention – Taking the time to define a standard set of conventions for name and
Lessons Learnt - DRG
Complex Requests – Complex requests with multiple limb and leaves are slow and difficult to process. Either all items are approved or none.
Challenge
Fast Changing Requirements – As business users got to know DRG, they increasingly added and adapted workflow requirements and expected fast
turnaround.
Prefer multiple simple requests – By using multiple simple requests, users can collaborate in
restructuring a hierarchy, take advantage of the copy request option, see the result in the UAT version as restructuring progresses and discuss and reject individual items without blocking the full
restructuration.
Lesson Learnt
Independent tasks – Time invested in creating
separate tasks per workflow reduces complexity and risk around modifying workflows at a later date.
Continuous improvement – Workflows are not static and will change as users and the organization
changes.
Oracle DRG, coupled with Oracle DRM, has enabled us to control the
release of master data changes to our production environment. We can
test the impact of our master data changes on numbers in our
pre-production environment to ensure they have the required affect. We can
then release these changes using a controlled and automated process to
our production environment.
Manual activities have been dramatically reduced, rekeying has been
eliminated and the inbuilt controls and validations have helped speed up
the master data process.
Oracle DRG, coupled with Oracle DRM, has enabled us to control the release of master data
changes to our production environment. We can test the impact of our master data
changes on numbers in our pre-production environment to ensure they have the required
affect. We can then release these changes using a controlled and automated process to
our production environment.
Manual activities have been dramatically reduced, rekeying has been eliminated and the
inbuilt controls and validations have helped speed up the master data process.
David Allen, Financial Systems Manager at ICAP
Q&A
Company Overview
ICAP plc is a leading markets operator and provider of post trade risk and information services. ICAP provides a wide variety of electronic execution, risk mitigation, messaging, broking and information services for wholesale market participants. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
ICAP trades in a number of markets, including interest rates, credit, credit derivatives, foreign exchange, intellectual property (patents, via ICAP Patent Brokerage), and equity derivatives.
ICAP plc is headquartered in London, United Kingdom and has a strong global presence in all major financial centres – with a local footprint in 32 countries and more than 70 locations worldwide. The average daily transaction volume for ICAP
ICAP are an extensive user of the Hyperion product set using Hyperion Essbase, Hyperion Financial Management (HFM), Hyperion Planning, Hyperion Profitability and Cost management (HPCM), alongside Hyperion FDM and ERPi, to manage financial data.
As partners in
our Financial
Transformation
Programme they
have consistently
delivered quality
solutions, on time
and within the
agreed budgets.
Oracle DRM and
EPMA improves
control and
efficiency of
ICAP’s financial
applications
ICAP Case study
Objectives
3 Control: Implement a governance
solution to control Hyperion Financial Management, Essbase, Hyperion Planning, EPMA and HPCM
3 Integrate: Facilitate integration
with all financial applications 3 Standardise: Enforce standard
reporting
3 Flexible: Ensure the solution can
adapt to ever changing business needs
3 Scalable: Ensure the application
can adapt as their business continues to evolve
Situation
Mary Carter, IT Oracle Development Manager at ICAP, described the situation before the Financial System Roadmap Master Data Project was initiated:
“ICAP had decided to initiate a
comprehensive financial transformation programme for a number of reasons. We wanted to
• consolidate our reporting tools; • improve the end-to-end visibility
of data;
• increase our ability to automate data loads between applications; and • improve our master data management
process.
We engaged Seismi to improve our approach to master data governance, help improve the end-to-end visibility of data and help improve our ability to automate interfaces.
We recognised that without a strategic approach to master data, we would have difficulty delivering the flexible and scalable solution which would allow us to adapt to the ever-changing environment in which we operate.”
Objective
Create a master data governance tool which would allow users to maintain master data associated with the Hyperion Product set.
Solution
Seismi delivered an Oracle DRM and EPMA solution which allowed ICAP to govern and deploy their Hyperion applications. This master data governance solution comprises four inter-related elements:
• Oracle DRM: Provides single, central
location where master data is
maintained. Reads value sets from EBS, enriches with properties and allows additional reports and application specific structures to be created;
• EPMA Interface: Master data from
Oracle DRM is exported and loaded into EPMA;
• EPMA Deployment: EPMA used as the
standard method to deploy all Hyperion applications; and
• ERPi: ERPi has been implemented to
load data from EBS into two Essbase applications. This provides the ability for users to drill from data in Essbase, back the general ledger to provide complete transparency on all data reported.
Technologies
This comprehensive master data solution governs the following products: • Oracle DRM
• EPMA • ERPi
• Hyperion Financial Management • Essbase
• Hyperion Planning • Oracle EBS
About Seismi
Seismi is a UK-based professional services company that specialises in delivering fully integrated financial solutions to global corporate clients.
We are recognised as a specialist in financial masterdata governance and, as such we are ideally placed to implement financial solutions that are flexible, robust, scalable and automated. Our implementations centralise our client’s core financial masterdata into a single system, where financial governance is applied to ensure efficiency of process and accuracy of data. This forms a solid foundation from which we can deploy the full range of Enterprise Performance Management applications in a cost effective and controlled manner.
We are proud to have established a reputation for service excellence and exceeding expectations, and are committed to providing fully integrated and comprehensive solutions, which deliver real business benefit for our clients.
“DRM has allowed us to centralise our financial master data into a single location, directly managed by our business users. This has enhanced our control over master data, improved our ability to adapt to organisational change and freed up expensive technical resource to concentrate on enhancing our financial applications. Seismi have approached the implementation of Oracle DRM and Hyperion EPMA in a very practical and professional manner. As partners in our Financial Transformation Programme they have consistently delivered quality solutions, on time and within the agreed budgets.
We hope to continue using Seismi and Oracle DRM to create a first class master data management process, providing proactive governance over our financial master data”
Mary Carter,
Development Manager ICAP Oracle Solutions
