Wendy’s recipe for a high-quality HR transformation
How this fast-food leader created a leading-edge experience for its employees
Wendy’s recipe for a high-quality HR transformation
How this fast-food leader created a leading-edge experience for its employees
Client
The Wendy’s Company
Industry
Quick-service restaurants
Primary goal
Replace legacy HR and Payroll systems, upgrade employee services
Technologies
Cloud-based Oracle HR and Payroll
When an acquisition doubles your revenue in your largest market, there are some big numbers at play—especially when you’re a $48 billion CPG company. And the bigger the numbers, the bigger the impact of every strategic and tactical decision you make. You can’t afford to have your visibility clouded and your decision-making hampered by having two disparate financial operations functions each with its own systems, software, and people. So, when a global CPG company found itself in this situation, it called on KPMG to drive fast, smooth, cost-efficient integration of financial operations.
1
and global alignment between cross-functional teams
2
into consolidated spend driving meaningful insights and more proactive decisions
3
the monthly close cycle
4
revenue and sales forecasting
Battling for talent in the food service industry is hard enough without battling your Human Resources (HR) systems, too. For Wendy’s, which prides itself on its commitment to quality in every aspect of its business, managing pay and benefits with its legacy HR systems was starting to challenge that commitment. Here’s how KPMG helped Wendy’s make the difference for its highest-quality asset—its people—by deploying a significant HR tech upgrade powered by Oracle’s leading-edge cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) system.
Client transformation journey
Acquiring a large organic food and beverage business helped a global CPG company expand its operations and nearly double its revenue in the U.S. However, as with most mergers, the integration posed some challenges. Two disparate IT environments with different accounting and reporting models, separate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and multiple business intelligence (BI) tools required extensive manual intervention and offline data manipulation, preventing uniform reporting and analysis. Data was trapped in silos. Visibility was insufficient. A new CFO and the finance and accounting teams lacked the insight to support effective forecasting and both strategic and tactical decision-making. In a sector as competitive and fast-changing as food products, this company needed to increase visibility quickly.
Acquiring a large organic food and beverage business helped a global CPG company expand its operations and nearly double its revenue in the U.S. However, as with most mergers, the integration posed some challenges. Two disparate IT environments with different accounting and reporting models, separate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and multiple business intelligence (BI) tools required extensive manual intervention and offline data manipulation, preventing uniform reporting and analysis. Data was trapped in silos. Visibility was insufficient. A new CFO and the finance and accounting teams lacked the insight to support effective forecasting and both strategic and tactical decision-making. In a sector as competitive and fast-changing as food products, this company needed to increase visibility quickly.
While this CPG company’s business is spread across two continents (and originates from a number of acquired companies), its financial operations are now centralized and unified. A cloud-based platform extracts and loads data from numerous global sources, then configures and stores it in a central location. Accounting staff across multiple back offices work within a single governance structure and with a single set of streamlined processes, enabling effective reporting and supporting a swift, accurate close. Across the enterprise, visibility is excellent, and insights are at the ready, because analysts can perform real-time calculations and drill down swiftly to the meaning behind the numbers. Unified financial operations helps this $48 billion player predict accurately, plan effectively, and act swiftly—all crucial in a sector where windows of opportunity close as suddenly as they open.
While this CPG company’s business is spread across two continents (and originates from a number of acquired companies), its financial operations are now centralized and unified. A cloud-based platform extracts and loads data from numerous global sources, then configures and stores it in a central location. Accounting staff across multiple back offices work within a single governance structure and with a single set of streamlined processes, enabling effective reporting and supporting a swift, accurate close. Across the enterprise, visibility is excellent, and insights are at the ready, because analysts can perform real-time calculations and drill down swiftly to the meaning behind the numbers. Unified financial operations helps this $48 billion player predict accurately, plan effectively, and act swiftly—all crucial in a sector where windows of opportunity close as suddenly as they open.
There will be more acquisition targets in the company’s future. And with a cloud-based platform, governance framework, and standardized processes in place, integrating financial operations will be a swift, sure process. A successful integration inspired the CFO and global finance team to consider other areas for transformation. From evolving multiple layers of the target operating model within Finance, to jump-starting transformation across other functional areas, a powerful ripple effect began and continues across the enterprise. Having the right tools and processes to support a grander vision driven by meaningful insights will continue to empower positive change.
There will be more acquisition targets in the company’s future. And with a cloud-based platform, governance framework, and standardized processes in place, integrating financial operations will be a swift, sure process. A successful integration inspired the CFO and global finance team to consider other areas for transformation. From evolving multiple layers of the target operating model within Finance, to jump-starting transformation across other functional areas, a powerful ripple effect began and continues across the enterprise. Having the right tools and processes to support a grander vision driven by meaningful insights will continue to empower positive change.
Acquiring a large organic food and beverage business helped a global CPG company expand its operations and nearly double its revenue in the U.S. However, as with most mergers, the integration posed some challenges. Two disparate IT environments with different accounting and reporting models, separate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and multiple business intelligence (BI) tools required extensive manual intervention and offline data manipulation, preventing uniform reporting and analysis. Data was trapped in silos. Visibility was insufficient. A new CFO and the finance and accounting teams lacked the insight to support effective forecasting and both strategic and tactical decision-making. In a sector as competitive and fast-changing as food products, this company needed to increase visibility quickly.
While this CPG company’s business is spread across two continents (and originates from a number of acquired companies), its financial operations are now centralized and unified. A cloud-based platform extracts and loads data from numerous global sources, then configures and stores it in a central location. Accounting staff across multiple back offices work within a single governance structure and with a single set of streamlined processes, enabling effective reporting and supporting a swift, accurate close. Across the enterprise, visibility is excellent, and insights are at the ready, because analysts can perform real-time calculations and drill down swiftly to the meaning behind the numbers. Unified financial operations helps this $48 billion player predict accurately, plan effectively, and act swiftly—all crucial in a sector where windows of opportunity close as suddenly as they open.
There will be more acquisition targets in the company’s future. And with a cloud-based platform, governance framework, and standardized processes in place, integrating financial operations will be a swift, sure process. A successful integration inspired the CFO and global finance team to consider other areas for transformation. From evolving multiple layers of the target operating model within Finance, to jump-starting transformation across other functional areas, a powerful ripple effect began and continues across the enterprise. Having the right tools and processes to support a grander vision driven by meaningful insights will continue to empower positive change.
Poor visibility threatened business objectives.
Acquiring a large organic food and beverage business helped a global CPG company expand its operations and nearly double its revenue in the U.S. However, as with most mergers, the integration posed some challenges. Two disparate IT environments with different accounting and reporting models, separate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and multiple business intelligence (BI) tools required extensive manual intervention and offline data manipulation, preventing uniform reporting and analysis. Data was trapped in silos. Visibility was insufficient. A new CFO and the finance and accounting teams lacked the insight to support effective forecasting and both strategic and tactical decision-making. In a sector as competitive and fast-changing as food products, this company needed to increase visibility quickly.The preconfigured assets and technology accelerators delivered by KPMG Powered Enterprise let ambitious leadership teams take advantage of embedded leading practices to speed up the decision-making process while instilling confidence.
Unified financial operations support global success.
While this CPG company’s business is spread across two continents (and originates from a number of acquired companies), its financial operations are now centralized and unified. A cloud-based platform extracts and loads data from numerous global sources, then configures and stores it in a central location. Accounting staff across multiple back offices work within a single governance structure and with a single set of streamlined processes, enabling effective reporting and supporting a swift, accurate close. Across the enterprise, visibility is excellent, and insights are at the ready, because analysts can perform real-time calculations and drill down swiftly to the meaning behind the numbers. Unified financial operations helps this $48 billion player predict accurately, plan effectively, and act swiftly—all crucial in a sector where windows of opportunity close as suddenly as they open.
A strong foundation that can keep pace with continued growth.
There will be more acquisition targets in the company’s future. And with a cloud-based platform, governance framework, and standardized processes in place, integrating financial operations will be a swift, sure process. A successful integration inspired the CFO and global finance team to consider other areas for transformation. From evolving multiple layers of the target operating model within Finance, to jump-starting transformation across other functional areas, a powerful ripple effect began and continues across the enterprise. Having the right tools and processes to support a grander vision driven by meaningful insights will continue to empower positive change.
When you work with KPMG, you expect access to a lot of expertise, and we definitely saw that, both in the depth and breadth of what they brought, with extensive project experience, a playbook, and best practices. One of the things, though, that I really appreciated about KPMG was they were willing to push—appropriately—with our teams, offering suggestions or ideas or another point of view to how we were thinking about things, all in the spirit of helping us get to a better solution and outcome.
Coley O’Brien
Chief People Officer, The Wendy’s Company
When you work with KPMG, you expect access to a lot of expertise, and we definitely saw that, both in the depth and breadth of what they brought, with extensive project experience, a playbook, and best practices. One of the things, though, that I really appreciated about KPMG was they were willing to push—appropriately—with our teams, offering suggestions or ideas or another point of view to how we were thinking about things, all in the spirit of helping us get to a better solution and outcome.
Coley O’Brien
Chief People Officer, The Wendy’s Company
Check out this video series to hear directly from the Wendy’s leadership team about their successful transformation.
Wendy’s recipe for a high-quality HR transformation- Client Testimonial
Rich Isola :
This move to the cloud is really intended to be your last software implementation. The relationship that KPMG had with Wendy's really was summarized in two parts. There was leadership and governance that was truly an enabler, and then we collaborated aggressively and do that such that we're delivering the right solution the first time.
Coley O'Brien :
Myself, the CFO, the CIO were very active and hands-on as executive sponsors. We knew it was critical that we needed to work together to align, make those decisions, and then get the team going. One of the things though that I really appreciated about KPMG was they were willing to offer suggestions or ideas or maybe a contrarian point of view, all in the spirit of helping us get to a better solution or outcome.
Elise Baer:
KPMG's support in implementing Oracle HCM allowed us to go from multiple systems and a disparate data model to one data model and one system. We would not have been successful if the KPMG team did not bring their absolute best people and operated as a one-team mindset with our Wendy's organization.
Amy Woods :
We recognized that we needed some expertise in change management to make this implementation go well. KPMG was really helpful in bringing the outside thinking to how you structure a change plan and helping us craft our messaging to our identified audiences in a way that would be received culturally within Wendy's.
Stephanie Shaw :
Wendy's is a really special place. Our goals are to create joy and opportunity through food, family, and community. We found hands down that Oracle was the integrated solution that would unify our people. From my perspective, it's one of the best implementations I've been a part of. The way KPMG offers opportunities for Wendy's folks to grow their thought leadership and grow some of their skills is just amazing.
Suzie Thuerk :
We paid over 14,000 associates with that first pay run accurately and timely, and we also closed our books for the quarter end within our allotted period of time, and all of our integrations, journal entries and systems worked appropriately. So we were really excited about the goals that we achieved.
Coley O'Brien :
There was tremendous cross-collaboration between Wendy's, KPMG and Oracle to dramatically transform the systems that help really drive the employee experience for us at Wendy's.
Wendy's: Enhanced Employee Experience with Oracle Cloud HCM Platform
Coley O’Brien:
We were able to not only make a better employee experience, but also elevate capability in our people systems, which has just been tremendous. We are providing support to our employees in a more effective way. In a way that's gonna add more value. Again, to elevate that employee experience.
Bailey Capper:
One huge efficiency that we found is our managers actually have reporting capability at the restaurant level, which they've never had before. So now they have that real time access to their own data for their own restaurants. Oracle Cloud HCM actually allows our employees to be in control of all of their data and not just within the four walls of their restaurant. They can access their data anytime.
Suzie Thuerk:
The employees really appreciate that. They're able to log onto the system, they can see their pay, they can make a life change, they can do their expense reports. So it's really neat to see the employees have a curated experience. Wendy's is all about culture, so the happier our employees, the better.
From Testing to Success: Wendy's Oracle Cloud HCM Implementation Journey
Trisha Hastings:
As part of any successful cloud implementation, it's really important to focus on robust testing. So at Wendy's, we took our comprehensive powered enterprise catalog of test scripts and tailored those for Wendy's to really ensure robust end-to-end testing, encompassing full business process, functional aspects, and of course, complex use cases associated with testing, security integrations and reports.
Steve Troth:
Our parallel payroll testing experience was fantastic. The tools that we utilized, the rigor that was put into the process and the detail helped us to really identify variances early on in the process. And that allowed us to communicate prior to go live. So then once we went live, we weren't getting a lot of questions from employees about pay variances and other things, so we were able to focus on more value added activities post go live. Our HCM transformation was done on time and with quality due to our collaboration with our KPMG team from initial design to testing, and then also then to go live and Hypercare post go live.
Suzie Thuerk:
We paid over 14,000 associates with that first pay run accurately and timely. And we also closed our books for the quarter end within our allotted period of time. And all of our integrations, journal entries and systems worked appropriately. So we were really excited about the goals that we achieved.
The Wendy’s Story: Ready Set Deploy
Elise Baer:
To make cutover successful. We were being incredibly detailed in what had to happen. Working together with KPMG as our collaborator to check that information, we were really shoulder to shoulder in the trenches, if you will, making sure the project could get where we expected it.
Trisha Hastings:
We also rehearsed cutover multiple times throughout the project, running full data conversions and engaging those key cutover stakeholders to validate the data and perform those tasks as part of dress rehearsals. So everyone was really well versed.
Melanie Trudell:
They came and said, Hey, we've done this before. Here is the framework that we recommend that you use. But that was an area that really set them apart, knowing that they had a demonstrated framework that we could leverage. We worked with KPMG on our cutover and production and such critical times in the project to ensure that we were able to take the best practices from KPMG and apply Wendy's culture to that framework to ensure that we could deploy the Wendy's way, that dedication during Hypercare and their support. KPMG did a fantastic job of setting us up to be successful.
The Wendy’s Story: What does the future hold for Wendy’s?
Coley O'Brien:
We're sitting here at this amazing Lakehouse facility, uh, where our team's been invited to be part of a bit of a postmortem of our project, but also thinking about the future and how we optimize all of the investments that we've made.
Amy Woods :
So this is really awesome to be together and hear from folks who have seen, you know, way post implementation. What could this look like? How could you leverage a system to unlock even more at your organization? And so it'll be a really important piece of feeding our strategy and our prioritization efforts into what we want to focus on over the next few years.
Stephanie Shaw:
We are really excited about the art of the possible. I think AI is gonna impact the HR and finance space in the future immensely. There's massive opportunity to create automation, to create more efficiency and really augment the roles that our teams are performing today to drive insights faster and outcomes faster.
Suzie Thuerk :
We're really excited because with the new HCM and finance platform now on Oracle Cloud, we are going to unlock a lot more opportunities in our continuous improvement journey. Being a leader in finance, I am really excited because I know that our work five years from now is not gonna look how it looks today. We have the technology and the foundation set to unlock that growth. We had to make sure that our employees are focused on using their skillset in a way that is most impactful to them and the business.
Wendy’s Work Done Right initiative is the company’s major transformation initiative to upgrade its essential finance/enterprise resource planning (ERP), enterprise performance management (EPM), and HCM systems using the Oracle Cloud platform. After completing the implementation of ERP and EPM, Wendy’s brought in KPMG to reset the project and fully reimagine, develop, and launch the HCM system. KPMG resources on this project included our human capital advisory team, Oracle specialists, system designers and developers, and testing and change management specialists. The dynamic new HCM platform had an on-time launch in September 2023.
Wendy’s existing HR systems were a complex patchwork of different technologies, interfaces, and data sources. Using a thorough discovery process, KPMG was able to establish a detailed view of the existing architecture as well as critical gaps in a few areas that needed to be closed. Our team developed an overall vision for a new, tightly integrated HCM platform, and then validated that business case and its related assumptions with the Wendy’s team. Key tasks in this phase included:
After a pause to review and validate the overall HCM vision with Wendy’s, our KPMG teams began the work of designing and constructing the expanded new platform within the Oracle HCM suite, tracking to the Q3 2023 go-live goal. Wendy’s also tasked our teams with additional scope, based on gaps that had been identified in the discovery process. Key tasks in this phase included:
The original project plan called for a two-phase launch timeline, which would allow the complex updates required for the self-service features to come online after the primary system. But based on regular meetings with the client teams and ongoing risk-reward evaluations, the decision was made to go forward with a consolidated launch.
With final testing completed to help ensure every aspect of the platform was operating correctly—from corporate data feeds all the way through to-the-penny payroll accuracy—the dynamic new digital-first HCM platform rolled out successfully in September 2023. KPMG then provided two months of hypercare support, which covered all post-go-live management while steadily transitioning responsibilities and handling knowledge transfer to Wendy’s overall support team.
Wendy’s new HCM platform has dramatically transformed its approach to “human resources,” elevating the employee experience across the board for everyone. This new technology better enables Wendy’s to stay focused on delivering top-quality food, service, and dining experiences for its customers. As KPMG learned firsthand on this project, Wendy’s is a people-first organization. In feedback after the project was launched, for example, Wendy’s leadership shared how much they appreciated that KPMG also led with its people. This started with the actual project team (not just sales) participating in the initial pitch, and Wendy’s knew who they would be working with from Day 1. The shared value and approach fostered a close, ongoing collaboration that helped the teams make the right decisions along the way. With agile adjustments that helped ensure a successful rollout of Wendy’s robust new HCM platform, it was a winning recipe for both Wendy’s and KPMG.
The restaurant chain uses Oracle Cloud ERP, EPM, and HCM to reduce risk and improve user and employee experiences.
Some companies have all the capabilities they need to launch established technologies like the Oracle HCM platform. But most don’t. One of the primary reasons Wendy’s chose KPMG for this project was our depth of experience with Oracle systems overall and the HCM platform and related HR processes specifically. We’ve seen what makes these projects work—and where they go off the rails. Please reach out to us if we can help you think about how to select, design, and implement established systems that can transform your organization. KPMG. Make the Difference.
Finding a clear way forward in the wake of a major acquisition
Financial operations integration gave a consumer packaged goods company needed visibility in today’s market
Oracle client stories
KPMG helps companies transform business operations to become more efficient and competitive leveraging Oracle technology.