Optimal financial information at Ampleon

Optimizing financial disclosure

The innovative company wants to improve its financial disclosure. "We were doing consolidation in Excel. That was untold manually driven, error-prone and time-consuming. To look professional, you need a consolidation system," Harm Polman, Sr. Director of Financial Planning & Analysis at Ampleon about the reason for implementing OneStream for consolidation.

Ampleon provides high performance radio frequency technology [RF Power]. This technology is used for wireless infrastructure for mobile telephony, television and radio, industrial, scientific and medical applications, aviation and defense, as well as in applications for microwave ovens to heat/defrost and plasma lighting. The company, with 16 locations including its headquarters in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, employs about 1,650 people worldwide.

"If one person does everything manually, you are very vulnerable. With standard processes and an off-the-shelf solution, creating backup becomes much more flexible."

Consolidation with OneStream in preparation for anticipated IPO

One of the reasons for the optimization effort is Ampleon's possible IPO. Harm: "We want to be able to consolidate more efficiently and reliably, especially given the possible IPO. Then you have to have the investor relations reporting process in tight order."

"We want to be able to both provide our internal stakeholders with information faster and make sure it's reliable information, which particularly helps build trust," says Robin Whelan, Reporting Manager at Ampleon. "As we move to listing, much more and tighter deadlines and external information needs arise. Then we need to be able to get ad hoc analyses above water faster."

Another reason is to reduce vulnerability, Harm explains:

"If one person does everything manually, and that person gets sick or drops out, you're very vulnerable. With standard processes and an off-the-shelf solution, creating backup becomes much more flexible."

From corporate to local

The third reason is the desire to place more activities with local financial managers. "To increase professionalism even further, we want local users to be able to make analyses as well," Robin says.

The local managers are responsible for the consolidation, i.e. from the figures to reading them into OneStream. It comes down to the countries' own discipline to ensure that the figures are correct. "This shifts the responsibility for the correctness of the figures from Corporate to the countries," says Ruben Cammeraat, closely involved in the implementation of OneStream at Ampleon from Finext.

Improve financial processes in three phases

Optimizing the consolidation and reporting processes is the first phase in a broader program. "We are tackling this program in three phases. The first phase is 'Reliable Reporting.' This involves reporting to internal and external stakeholders, for example bank reporting and reporting to shareholders, but also internally to management. The second phase is 'Management information', where we want to spend less time on reporting and more on analysis. The third phase is 'Driver-based forecasting,'" Harm says. "Ultimately, we feel that every piece of information from finance should have a purpose."

In connection with the possible stock market listing, phase 1 focuses on reporting. But even without a stock market listing, this is a logical structure, Ruben believes: "You first have to make sure that you as a team get to grips with the tool, and that everyone - including local users - start using it. In practice, we take such a project approach at many organizations; first the mandatory consolidation, then gradually expand to a strategic plan and driver-based forecasting."

Choosing OneStream's broad platform

The broad program is a key reason for choosing OneStream's platform. "We wanted an off-the-shelf and scalable system that would help us in our goal to automate more. In addition, we wanted to capture the entire process from validation to analysis in one system," Harm says.

Ampleon is not going about this overnight; a previous implementation of another consolidation system was not successful. Reason enough to work with Finext this time. "We asked Finext to help us in two areas: the selection process and the implementation," says Harm. An important aspect was the fact that Finext is independent of software vendors, explains Robin: "Other parties often have a strong preference for one tool, while Finext has broad tool knowledge and can give independent advice."

Part of the selection process included a reference visit to Flowtraders, where Finext previously implemented OneStream. Harm and Robin are enthusiastic about the course of the project: "To their full satisfaction, both with regard to the standardization in the system and the execution of the project. Also the training and support of the organization went well."

"Ultimately, we want to translate the strategy into action plans. OneStream helps us approach this in a structured way."

Support strategy

Harm: "When we were established as Ampleon four years ago, all group functions were separated and we now fill these functions independently. This is still relatively new for parts of the organization."

Implementing OneStream to optimize processes supports Ampleon's strategy. "Ultimately, we want to translate the strategy into action plans. On these action plans you want to have progress. OneStream helps us to approach this in a structured way," says Harm.

Faster and better consolidation with OneStream

The innovative company is positive about the results of the new consolidation process. "I see only benefits, and also get the feedback from the organization that they see a lot of added value. The numbers are better and easier to access. Also, the speed of reporting has increased, allowing us to spend time on other things," says Harm.

The next phase is already planned. "First it's important to complete phase 1 properly," says Robin. "You shouldn't underestimate that, it takes time to put down all the additional reports. Think for example of manufacturing variances and cost center reporting. After that, we can expand the management information further."