SAP Central Finance, Insights From Our Finance Community

The Top Seven Take-Aways from our Global Central Finance Customers

1. Central Finance reduces complexity – but not necessarily the number of ‘boxes’!

There is something of a competition between Central Finance customers to see who has the most complex IT landscape. With no less than 90 subsidiaries using a variety of versions of SAP, BAAN, Sage and Infor ERPs, Phoenix Contact is a strong contender for first place.

2. Central Finance helps organisations manage business change

Further evidence of the power of Central Finance to help organisations manage business change
came from a rather unlikely source at one of our events – SAP itself!

3. Central Finance leads to improvements in finance processes

A third theme that was highlighted in almost every presentation was how Central Finance has paved the way to improvements in Finance Processes.

4. Central Finance is NOT a magic wand – you have to be determined NOT to repeat the sins of the past

So far so good. But does this mean implementing Central Finance was easy for our presenters? In a word – NO!

5. It’s all about Data

As one of our speakers eloquently said: “There are three priorities in every Central Finance project – Data, Data, Data!”

6. The Importance of 6 Good Partnering

Few of our customers embarked on their Central Finance journeys alone. Some, such as Chevron, benefited from software options provided by technical partners such as Magnitude Source Connect, which was successfully deployed to speed up the integration of Central Finance with their JD Edwards source systems.

7. Central Finance isn’t a destination, it’s a journey

The seventh theme, stated over and over again by our customer presenters: Central Finance is a Journey. But not in the negative sense of a never ending project. Far from it, all the speakers were reporting positive outcomes, real deliverables, tangible achievements.

Read the full findings here >