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NBH 2020 News 1

Jebsen & Jessen

Data Consolidation Reveals Single Source of Truth

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The company 

Jebsen & Jessen of South East Asia, Pte. Ltd. has eight industrial businesses in engineering, manufacturing, and distribution. With 60 legal entities, the company’s finance department needed an efficient way to close the books. Because supporting systems weren’t natively integrated, manual work was sometimes needed, increasing the risk of inconsistent data between systems. “SAP software helped us establish one version of the truth,” explains Ow Yeong Fong Luen, Group Director, Corporate Finance at Jebsen & Jessen.

Project Background

Jebsen & Jessen had been using Hyperion software for more than 10 years. However, because its SAP® ERP application and management reporting system weren’t integrated. There was no single, centralized finance database and work efforts were oftentimes duplicated across geographies.

Each company uploaded its monthly data to Hyperion for management reporting and the financial close; it didn’t come directly from our SAP ERP application,” explains Chris Tan, General Manager of IT Shared Services at Jebsen & Jessen. “Because our systems weren’t integrated, there was a risk of data inconsistencies between them. To address this, we wanted a natively integrated performance management system so that actuals in our enterprise resource planning system could be automatically posted in our financial consolidation, budgeting, and reporting system. This would eliminate any manual entries outside of SAP ERP and the need for manual reconciliations, as well as give us complete audit compliance and con trol from transaction to reporting.

For Jebsen & Jessen, implementing a fully integrated platform was the first step in a long-term performance management initiative. “Our goal within the group was to improve reporting and consolidation, implement scorecards and dashboards, and optimize budgeting and planning,” states Tan.

We now have a single, integrated platform to help us manage the business we’ve eliminated error-prone manual reconciliations, and we’ve laid the foundation for the rest of our enterprise performance management strategy.”

Ow Yeong Fong Luen
Group Director, Corporate Finance, Jebsen & Jessen

Choosing the Right Solution

Because the group’s version of Hyperion software was at the end of its life and required a full upgrade, it was a natural time to consider all options. The company had already been using SAP ERP successfully for a number of years. “By standardizing on solutions from SAP, we could get more value from our investment in SAP ERP and achieve our broader goal of having one, fully integrated platform,” explains Tan. Standardizing on SAP software would also reduce IT maintenance and integration costs for the business as a whole.

 

A Smooth Implementation


Jebsen & Jessen chose to implement the SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation (BPC) software, version for the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform, to replace its existing Hyperion system. To meet complex management reporting requirements, the group also chose to deploy SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards software. The entire implementation took just over five months to complete and involved the migration of two years of data from Hyperion Enterprise. It was completed with the assistance of Syniti and the IT team from Electra (S) Pte. Ltd. To facilitate rapid user adoption, the company invested in training for more than 200 users. By standardizing on solutions from SAP, we could get more value from our investment in SAP ERP and achieve our broader goal of having one, fully integrated platform.”
Chris Tan, General Manager of IT Shared Services, Jebsen & Jessen

 

 

By standardizing on solutions from SAP, we could get more value from our investment in SAP ERP and achieve our broader goal of having one, fully integrated platform.”

Chris Tan
General Manager of IT Shared Services, Jebsen & Jessen

Challenges

  • Reduce the risk of inconsistent data flowing between the company’s ERP system and management reporting system
  • Reduce duplication of financial effort at the country level by deploying a single, unified platform
  • Establish a single, trusted source of financial data for International Financial Reporting Standards consolidation

 

 

Benefits from Syniti

  • Access to one, trusted version of the financial truth shared by all systems
  • Better decision making based on reliable management reporting
  • Increased efficiency and accuracy by eliminating manual reconciliations in consolidation and reporting
  • Greater transparency for more effective strategic planning and management

 

Why Syniti was Selected

Today, Jebsen & Jessen has a fully integrated enterprise resource planning and management reporting software system for financials that supports International Financial Reporting Standards consolidation for all 60 companies. SAP BPC, version for SAP NetWeaver, is natively integrated with the group’s single instance of SAP ERP, which means that real-time actuals are automatically posted in the software. This integration drives a fully automated, accurate, one-touch consolidation process.

“With the new soft ware in place, we’ve eliminated any manual interventions of our financial data, so the transactional data in SAP ERP now passes directly into SAP BPC,” states Tan. In addition, managers and executives at all levels can access real-time, accurate management reporting – right at their desktops. Using SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards software, they can quickly generate the legal. country, activity, operational. and other reporting “views”
needed to support decision making. The company can roll up budgeting and planning
information faster as well.

“While we’re not yet leveraging the software’s support for top-down and bottom-up planning and budgeting, we can upload and centralize information generated using our current budget process and analyze it,” states Ow Yeong Fong Luen.

Results

Jebsen & Jessen is very pleased with the streamlined transaction-to-consolidation and transaction-to-reporting functionality made possible with SAP software,” states Ow Yeong Fong Luen. “We now have a single, integrated platform to help us manage the business, we’ve eliminated error-prone manual reconciliations, and we’ve laid the foundation for the rest of our enterprise performance management strategy.”
The next step is to streamline processes further, building on the group’s current momentum. This next phase will automate the budgeting process across all of the businesses,” he adds. “Together with our team in Electra, we will continue to build on our industry best-practice road map for enterprise performance management with Syniti and SAP. And we’ll continue to deliver solutions to support the strategic growth of our business.”