Overview
The client – a unit of a public company within the financial services sector – engaged the DLC team to design and implement an agile financial reporting structure after experiencing a series of discrepancies that negatively impacted operations due to their decentralized system.
Business Challenges
With the client’s decentralized structure, reporting was provided monthly to corporate on an expedited close schedule. Under this system, the reporting relied on a manual data pull from three separate legacy systems which was then processed through a painstaking and time-consuming Microsoft Excel process.
In addition, reporting was configured inconsistently depending on local and corporate manager requirements. Finally, a single staff member owned the entire process, which prohibited knowledge transfer for long-term growth.
DLC Approach
After careful evaluation of the process in place, the DLC team prioritized creating an agile, efficient reporting process powered by automation and meeting the constraints of the close schedule.
To meet these objectives, the project team set to work on expediting data collection with pivot tables, macros, conditional formulas, and other advanced Excel techniques.
The Results
With the new tools, the decentralized system was transformed into a rapid process driven by the end-user, providing more flexibility and customization. As a result, the client noticed improved reporting of assets under management, flows of funds, portfolio performance and profitability.
The efficient process saved time, increased accuracy and led to operational improvements.
Before DLC
- Decentralized operations
- Dependence on legacy systems
- Exposure to risk due to reliance on a single team member
After DLC
- Process automation & saved time
- Flexible & customizable processes
- More accurate and reliable reporting
- A reduction in overhead costs
