About Phoenix Group
Phoenix Group is the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement business. They offer a broad range of pensions and savings products to support people across all stages of the savings life cycle.
Phoenix was looking to:
- Improve their efficiency and streamline the processes of the whole group
- Cut down the number of processes
- Save time
In the context of their financial consolidation solution, Phoenix had a requirement to use the FX features of IBM Cognos Controller. Previously, different divisional teams had to input their data into the group consolidation tool and the currency translations had to be done manually. This process needed to be simplified and become much more automated without adding any additional processes to their consolidation.
IBM Cognos Controller upgrade with HAYNE
From an initial kick-off meeting, HAYNE was able to discuss with Phoenix what we could propose to help them make these desired improvements.
HAYNE was able to talk through the project theoretically and then provide a visual idea of what this would look like for Phoenix and the process involved to achieve it.
Jaymin Naik – Group Financial Accountant at Phoenix comments:
“The biggest challenge for us was understanding how these upgrades would fit in with the current system. HAYNE was able to bridge this gap and show us what it would look like”.
There were a few curveballs at the early stages of upgrading Phoenix’ Controller set up which HAYNE was able to overcome and ensure it caused no delay in moving the project forward.
HAYNE’s solution/fix
HAYNE and Phoenix collaborated well throughout the project. The project ran as expected and delivered what Phoenix Group wanted.
From the start, Phoenix made it clear what they wanted to do in relation to currency translation (FX) and from then it was all about trying to make their vision a reality.
Jaymin continues:
“From the beginning of the project, HAYNE took a hands-on approach. Any questions or concerns we had would be addressed promptly. Our project manager Gabriela was instrumental in the outcome and made sure that the project stayed on track . The relationship played a huge part in the successful delivery of our the currency translation”.
Outcomes
- An improved consolidation process due to the addition of currency translation functionalities
- A more automated currency translation process with a reduced risk of human error
- A smoother process that ties in to their company-wide target of improving financial processes as a whole
- A streamlined process for historic and retrospective data with historic entities being unaffected
- No additional work required to incorporate these changes into the existing process
- Less time is spent on the audit which frees up time to focus elsewhere
Summary
Phoenix Group now have an improved Cognos Controller set up with the additional functionality of FX to help further automate their consolidation process. The changes also tie in with their overall objective of streamlining their financial processes as they continue to grow as a business.