Client
Coventry Building Society
Industry
Financial Services
Primary Goal
Modernise Finance Operations
Technology
Workday
MAKE TRANSFORMATION HAPPEN
Coventry Building Society, one of the UK’s leading building societies, experienced significant growth over the past 20 years. However, their outdated finance function posed a challenge to their ambitious expansion plans. With Workday technology already in place, Coventry Building Society needed a trusted partner to help implement necessary changes. KPMG stepped in to support their transformation. Read our client to discover how they achieved success in under 16 months.
50%
Reduction in finance close cycle
1,000+
System enhancements delivered using low-code tools
90%
Reduction in spreadsheets and EUCs
MAKE EVERY INSIGHT COUNT
Delivering a finance function fit for the future
- Before
- During
- After
MAKE DATA EFFICIENT
Creating a simpler, more agile foundation for finance
The problem was that the finance function was not fit for purpose to meet the organisation’s growth objectives. Years of layering spreadsheets over old systems had left it with a technical architecture that was difficult to change. Significant manual workarounds were often required and it's technology was outdated, reaching end of life and expensive to support.
Coventry Building Society had been throwing people at the problem, but the challenges weren’t going away. Financial reporting was taking Coventry Building Society much longer than its peers. 80% of finance effort was being spent on non-value-adding. Data was impenetrable to cost owners and manual data process meant additional controls to gain confidence in the outputs.
The Finance function was struggling just to keep up with its current regulatory requirements, let alone take on new ones.
With their General Ledger solution provider stopping support for the system in a few years, Coventry Building Society knew they needed to make a decision. They could either update their existing system, lift-and-shift their current processes, and keep dealing with the complexity.
Or they could undertake an end-to-end transformation of the finance function, leaving them with a more agile, less complex and more responsive platform upon which to grow. Not surprisingly, they chose to transform.
MAKE IT TRUSTED
Putting business users at the heart of transformation
Coventry Building Society had selected a leading technology platform, but they needed was an independent third party who understood their business and could act as the business implementation partner.
Our focus was on ensuring the project was integrated and aligned at every stage of the transformation journey. Business users were involved from the outset in the entire vision including the design and build process. Using KPMG’s Powered accelerators, users were quickly able to see their new processes, controls and reports on the Workday platform, rather than waiting months to test them and confirm their value.
We engaged with each operational area, involving them in the end-to-end testing, review and sign off process for data being loaded into new system.
There was also an additional step called ‘business proving’. Users were trained in the specific processes, reports and functions of the new system. This enabled Coventry Building Society to test drive Workdays technology in a safe simulated environment to prove they could complete the Month End and Year End processes to the timetable well ahead of “Go Live”. A command centre watched over everything to monitor performance, help resolve issues and provide additional user support where needed.
MAKE DREAM TEAMS
A platform for change
Coventry Building Society’s finance function stands ready to deliver on the organisation’s growth objectives with a General Ledger and ERP that is fully integrated into the organisation’s architecture, supported by a single Chart of Accounts (COA) and standardised data sets.
High levels of straight through processing and automated controls means less time spent manually processing data, and reduced risk through robust automated preventative controls. The close cycle has been cut in half, providing Coventry Building Society with the information and agility they need to make smart decisions. More than 170 processes have been documented, making future changes much easier to manage.
Finance professionals are now able to spend around 30% more time on value-added activities, providing the organisation with insights that help them achieve their growth objectives. They’ve embraced their finance’s new capabilities, with Cost teams accessing deep insight into their data and commercial product teams now using adaptive planning capabilities to drive their product performance reporting.
How we're making the difference
Coventry Building Society now has a finance function that can deliver on the organisation’s growth objectives, with less time dedicated to annually processing data, and significantly reduced risk through robust automated preventative controls. The close cycle has been cut in half, providing Coventry Building Society with the information and agility they need to make smart decisions.
The finance team is also capable of conducting changes and implementing new features themselves using low-code approaches to rapidly update their systems as theneeds of the business evolve.
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