CPL Resources has one single version of the truth with
Mercur Business Control
After relying on Excel and disparate systems for
their Budgeting, Forecasting, and Reporting processes, CPL decided to find a
new solution. Their solution of choice was Mercur Business Control, and CPL now
has one single version of the truth for unified FP&A.
Background
CPL had historically relied on Budgeting, Forecasting,
and Reporting using Excel. As a company listed on the Irish stock exchange, growing and
acquisitive, the Finance Function realized that relying on Excel was no longer
sustainable.
Alongside Excel, CPL were also investing in Power BI.
However, Power Bi was not deemed appropriate for ownership within the finance function.
CPL needed a more flexible solution to meet their needs and one that ownership
would reside within the Finance Function.
As an organization, CPL wanted to reduce their time to
close and shorten the budgeting and forecasting cycles, increasing their
accuracy, and providing greater visibility and granularity of financial
numbers. With an experienced finance function, they wanted to create more time
for their Finance Business Partners to engage with the business and provide
greater support. The adoption of a new solution was not just about replacing
Excel but freeing experienced resources to deliver value add to the business.
When gathering requirements for a new system, CPL took
a bottom-up approach and gathered detail from an end-user perspective. With
finance partner input and from a top-down perspective, they also gathered
information from their executive and board to ensure that any adopted solution
would meet the full needs of their operational business and finance audience.
Mercur Business Control was our choice
One of the many reasons we chose Mercur was the
people, primarily from a presales and consultancy perspective. Mercur, as an
organization, listened to us and understood us. They aligned their solution to
meet our stakeholders' needs. We chose Mercur because of their simple
subscription and support model, delivering a strong return on our
investment.
Mercur, as an organization, listened to us and understood us. They aligned their solution to meet our stakeholders' needs
Karen Sheridan, Finance, CPL Resources
Implementation
The initial goal was to roll out Budgeting, followed by Management Reporting. However, in the middle of the project, we were acquired by Outsourcing Inc of Japan and delisted. In total, the implementation for Management Reporting and Budgeting was five months. As we were acquired mid-implementation, we had to change our priorities, but thanks to our finance team's appetite to rid ourselves of our Excel environment and Mercur's agile implementation model, we delivered the project both on time and on budget.
To enhance our automated process, we have directly integrated our ERP system, SAFE Financials, and our timesheet and sales reporting system, Access Pay & Bill, into Mercur Business Control. Having all our information in one single solution makes it easier to have control and overview of the numbers, and we no longer have to query disparate systems.
The value of Mercur Business Control
Thanks to Mercur Business Control's speed and robustness, we can bring in transactional-level detail to support the business and our decision-making without the need to query multiple systems. We are saving enormous time in our close process and avoiding iterative queries, as all data is now in a single easy-to-query source.
We have saved a lot of time in our budgeting cycle, it has reduced from twelve weeks pre-Mercur to six weeks in year one and four weeks in year two, resulting in redeployed staff. Like many organizations, we do have staff attrition, and Mercur was never adopted to replace any of our finance team. Still, we have learned since implementing Mercur that some staff posts have not been replaced, and many of our staff have found more time to deliver value as business partners to the organization. We continue exploring and developing Mercur Business Control to support our business growth and finance function effectiveness.