Decision Inc. UK has successfully implemented SAP BPC (Business Planning and consolidation) at London transport authority, Transport for London (TfL), to rationalise and simplify its financial planning and reporting processes.

• In 2018/19 TfL managed over 3.7 billion passenger journeys across Buses, London Underground and DLR services alone and to 98% schedule operated

• Generates and receives more than £10bn of income and funding per year

• 27,000 employees

The Requirements

Despite decreasing passenger volumes, economic uncertainties, and reduced government funding, TfL is under continued
pressure to deliver a high-quality service to travellers across the network. To this end, it initiated a Finance Improvement Programme (FIP) in 2018 to review and improve finance processes and systems.

Findings

• Planning processes were disconnected across three separate systems (IP, BPS, BPC) with different parts of the business following different policies and timetables

• Consolidated Group reporting produced from two additional separate systems (BCS, Cognos)

• Multiple versions of the truth within each system

• A high volume of manual offline spreadsheets, manual administration and replication of data 

Within the FIP, TfL sought to address the existing challenges in financial planning and reporting by focusing
efforts in three key areas:

1. Clearly defining the end to end policies, processes and controls required to improve financial planning and consolidated reporting

2. Facilitating the changes through the implementation of a single fit-for-purpose technology solution

3. Making the required changes to the culture of financial planning and reporting within TfL

Addressing these three areas will enable TfL to establish clear policies and controls to ensure financial planning and reporting in the organisation is simple and accurate, instilling confidence in the outputs.

The Solution

In February 2019, TfL engaged specialist EPM consultancy Decision Inc., to implement a SAP BPC solution for planning, financial consolidation and reporting to address the areas of issue.

Phase 1 of the delivery focussed on:

• Reducing and optimising the processes associated with the three planning systems and the two consolidations systems and move to using a single tool (BPC) for planning and financial reporting

• Within that single tool (BPC), implementing a solution to produce consolidated management and statutory reporting in a timely manner and act as a single source of truth

• Implementing a strategic technology platform from which to introduce longer term planning and reporting initiatives

Future phases of the project will aim to further systemise manual offline models and processes as well as increase the automation of calculations and integration with source systems.

The Solution Delivered

• Highly integrated planning and reporting solution (I&E, Inter Company, Balance Sheet, Cashflow, Risks & Ops, Financial     Consolidation, in process and end of process reporting)

• Forecasting, Budgeting and Strategic planning

• Standardised inputs and outputs

• Functionality to upload offline workings

• Automated integration with source systems (transactional actuals and master data)

• Project level cost planning

• Extensive system intelligence replacing manual effort (such as I&E to BS, capitalisation, actualisation, IC logic, consolidation   rules, EFC/COWD, realignment)

• End user classroom training delivery to 200+ users

• Workflow and approval framework

• BPC 10.1 (Embedded version) on HANA

The Benefits

The combination of a recognised enterprise performance management technology platform in SAP BPC and a specialist BPC partner, Decision Inc. UK, resulted in a robust, user-friendly solution that was delivered on time and on budget.

• Solution used by 200+ staff, across all divisions, for planning and reporting

• A single and standardised system allowed the business to design, implement and manage a single groupwide FP&A and   Financial Reporting policy

• The opportunity to decommission five incumbent legacy systems

• TfL were able to better understand the demands on the workforce and reallocate resources effectively

• Transparent, integrated, and streamlined budgeting, forecasting, strategic planning, and reporting within a single tool

• The solution enabled the business to deliver a robust 2021/22 budget and 2020 Q4 forecast with the ability to move to monthly   forecasting in future

• Reduction in manual effort and time to complete with lower administrative overhead

• Improved access to and confidence in data

• Comprehensive ‘in process’ reporting suite facilitating efficient review process

• The solution allowed the business to focus on interpretation and decision making rather than preparation and reconciliation

• A technology platform from which to manage further planning and reporting processes

About Decision Inc.

Decision Inc. is a global leader in information-driven transformation with a core focus on data, digital and  performance intelligence. Our expertise in technology and industry specialisations have enabled us to help companies around the world make better decisions faster. Our emphasis on local excellence and global scale enables us to bring clients best of breed technology solutions that enable significant improvement whilst leveraging our Global Research and Innovation teams to accelerate the time to insight. Our local consulting teams are experts in the implementation, support and execution of these solutions and work with our clients to deliver real results and improvement.

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