How an American retailer transformed its financial business processes to enable continued growth momentum

Wipro implements PeopleSoft V 9.2 and leverages automation to streamline the finance function

Client background

Client: American chain of department stores

Industry type: Retail

Products / Services / Core Business: Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, etc.

Geography / Areas of operations: USA

Challenges

The client’s ERP system, which has been supporting Finance & HR functions, was deployed over 15 years ago. This led to:

Lack of scalability with legacy PeopleSoft ERP hitting its scalability limit, becoming an impediment to business growth
Lack of accuracy and rigor in invoice-matching, resulting in significant manual effort
Inefficiencies in ‘Opportunistic Buying’ – a core process to achieve competitive advantage – due to difficulties in matching PO with received shipments
Lack of agility due to inconsistency between ERP system and actual company structure, resulting in manual effort for reconciliations

To achieve its revenue targets without any bottlenecks, the client needed a robust solution that could help streamline financial business processes.

Solution

After due-diligence of client’s IT landscape and challenges, Wipro recommended re-implementation of PeopleSoft Version 9.2 as opposed to an upgrade, and identified significant opportunities for improvement. Key aspects of the solution included:

Consolidation of Chart of Accounts for over 1000 stores and synchronization with other connected systems (reporting, analytics, supplier portal)
Integration of 3^rd party Master Data Management solution with PeopleSoft, and establishment of strict data governance process to eliminate duplication of records
Ensuring data retention and archival – compliant with ACS and IFRS
Accurate setup of complex organization structure onto the system to ensure proper allocation of costs, profits and taxes
Automation of invoice-matching processes, with implementation of a bespoke engine for exception handling

Additionally, Wipro successfully drove organizational change management throughout the program.

Business impact

Wipro’s solution resulted in the following benefits:

Over 90% auto-match leveraging industry-leading invoice-matching engine
90% reduction in paperwork in CFO organization due to improvements in processes and workflows
Streamlined procurement engine of around $1+ Billion annual spend
IFRS 16 compliance for leased assets worth billions of dollars
Streamlining of accounting leading to significant annual savings in tax audits & penalties

“Understanding of client needs, deep domain expertise and rigorous planning was key to the success of this program. With the power of automation and a highly simplified financial structure, the client could achieve scalability, agility and efficiency.”

- Balasubramanian Ramalingam, Practice Head – Oracle EBS, PeopleSoft & ERP Cloud, Oracle Practice, Wipro Limited

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How an American retailer transformed its

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