Choosing an EPM Consolidation Solution

Our client’s statutory consolidation tool is showing signs of technical and functional obsolescence, putting at risk the group’s ability to meet its financial reporting obligations in terms of timeliness and compliance. To address the group’s future external growth, constant regulatory changes, and increased demands for speed and granularity in financial reporting, the group seeks to implement a modern, agile, and high-performance solution. To select and implement an appropriate solution, an initial scoping phase has been launched with the objectives of defining a strategy and best practices tailored to the group’s context, confirming the project scope, identifying key functional and technical requirements, and proposing a realistic deployment roadmap.

To address these challenges, we adopted a pragmatic, targeted 5-week approach. We first conducted a critical review of the existing framework—processes, timelines, division of responsibilities between subsidiaries and the group, and tools—against best practices. This initial step not only identified the pain points to be addressed as part of the project but also enabled us to establish an initial list of functional requirements for the solution selection specifications. A second phase to define the project scope was conducted through “executive workshops,” structured around three key themes: project objectives and expected benefits, division of responsibilities and level of detail in information, and the balance between consolidation and management. A final phase to define the project schedule and budget, as well as to establish a shortlist of software vendors to consult, was carried out based on our benchmarks and feedback from past experiences.