Case Study

In 2023, "Unihei Telecom" is Canada's most innovative telecommunications corporation. Unihei sells a class leading product called "Uphone A" directly to customers across the world. All of its corporate finances are managed from its head office in Winnipeg.

Unihei was founded in 2020, with a vision to "connect people." Unihei has created innovative offerings and price points meet the needs of their customers and communities. With over 500 people currently employed and with over 50 locations across the world, Unihei continues to expand.

Over the years of expansion, Unihei has evolved in its use of Financial Risk Management (FRM) systems. These systems have proliferated across the corporation, as each department built solutions to cater to their own needs. Corporate reporting is now done using a mix of outdated technology platforms (a legacy ERP system based on JD Edwards (JDE) and a reporting system), with bolt on aggregators built in MS Access databases and MS Excel spreadsheets containing complex macros.

A recent project implemented a new Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) system to manage tangible and intangible resources that provides a modern interface operating via the corporate intranet. This ERP system interfaces with existing FRM systems to pull data, as the old systems remain the source of existing information and data; it also contains a whole new set of data fields developed to improve the relationship with high value customers. These new data sets are only held in the ERP system and are not passed to the old systems. The data logic maps and data dictionary are out of date, which is causing issues across the corporation.

Unihei has a large team in the Corporate Finance department managing multiple systems, databases and using complex excel spreadsheets to drive the multiple levels of FRM initiatives across Unihei. Reporting often takes weeks, is easily prone to error, and the spreadsheets are becoming unstable and unwieldy. In addition, reporting formats and ability to access data (drill down or aggregate) is no longer meeting the needs of the various stakeholders who rely on this information to make business decisions on a daily basis and to compile reports for external stakeholders.

Senior Executive Management consists of CIO, CFO, CEO and other executives in senior management roles across the corporation. Currently, they receive detailed and aggregate reporting in MS PowerPoint files every month. The problem is that information is too old to be actionable and only provides a snapshot of past results. Unihei would like aggregated real time data in a dashboard format they can access from any computing device using self-service. Critical data should be presented in easy to use graphs, with the ability for individual executives to drill down into the data to gain a more detailed view, and a standard set of filters, so they can sort, organize, and extract data themselves. Currently, they are very frustrated with both the timeliness and presentation of the data.

Vice Presidents (VPs) manage functions, such as finance, business development, product planning, supply chain management, and IT. Currently, they get weekly functional reports, which are more detail-oriented than those available to the Executive Management team. Again this data is old and error prone; they are constantly requesting updates and ad-hoc reports.

The data for VPs is focused on individual functions, rather than a whole corporation view. They expect the same "look and feel" to data as the Executive Management team, i.e., in a dashboard and graphical format, with the additional requirement that they want data to be pre-filtered to only show their division. They are very excited about this project and are giving it their full attention.

The Corporate Finance team reports to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). This team consists of over 25 staff responsible for producing all FRM reports for anyone in Unihei. They have highly developed skills in Access and Excel and are extensive users of pre-existing systems, though are only starting to integrate the new data in the ERP platform into their Excel reports (not using ERP reporting capabilities yet). They import all data into Excel spreadsheets for manipulation, reporting, and investigation. This team currently manages over 50 standard reports, and some of the reports have over 10,000 lines of data.

They are incredibly knowledgeable about the financial data and its meaning, but they find it challenging to provide meaningful data to Unihei, and they realize that they have become a bottleneck for the corporation. They are somewhat apprehensive about this project, as they are used to being the 'go to' people for information. Consequently, they are change resistant and fear for their jobs.

The IT team reports to the Chief Information Officer (CIO). They manage existing systems, including all applications, systems access, security, and helpdesk services. They know the current systems are nearing end-of-life, but take pride in maintaining them for organizational use. They realize that they are often seen as scapegoats and are a frustration to the business that is wanting a more modern reporting platform. Whilst not sponsoring this project, the CIO is partnering with the CFO to ensure that "best in class" design and usability of the new platform is an outcome of the project.

The Division Managers report to the Vice Presidents. They are in charge of the day-to-day management of each division. They need real time access to the finance of their own division and are also interested in the financial data of similar divisions across the corporation for comparative evaluation. They are very detail oriented, and they extensively use the current Excel reporting, but are very frustrated with always having to go through the Finance team. They cannot wait to be able to access, sort, and print out their own data

The Business Development Managers report to the VP-Business Development with dotted line reporting to the Division Manager(s). Their role is to maximize the sales and maintain a sales pipeline for the regions within their portfolio. Needs are similar to the divisional executives; they are very supportive of the project and will be the change champions and day to day decision makers and road block removers.

The CEO, Jeeves, has launched a new project to design and build a world class FRM system by 2027. This will interface seamlessly with underlying corporate systems (ERP and JD Edwards and MS office suite).

Jeeves happens to be a fan of the Blue Bombers and ran into you during a pre-game party at Investors Group Field. You impressed him with your knowledge of Strategy and Enterprise Analysis, and you were hired to facilitate business analysis on this new project at Unihei.

During your first two months at Unihei, you facilitated various conversations across the organization. Jeeves and you have defined the business analysis scope to include the following tasks:

plan and manage all the business analysis tasks, activities, and deliverables (assume a small team of BAs and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) under your guidance);

report to the project manager;

work out the best approach to requirement gathering, documenting, and report design (which methodology, which techniques, and how to explain this and get support);

plan and manage iterative workshops to gather data requirements, usability requirements, and reporting 'look and feel' design requirements;

build data dictionary and validate with SMEs and finance managers;

design report formats focusing on usability, navigation, and presentation of data;

work with technical team (developers and BI solution architects) to ensure business needs can be met;

manage scope creep and additional requirements, impact analysis, and costings and present to stakeholders for approval / rejection;

report to senior stakeholders on progress;

manage analysis risks and issues;

identify solution options;

develop recommendations;

process map the to-be finance reporting processes with business;

manage report reviews and sign offs; and

facilitate set up of central sharepoint site for management of project documentation.

Data will be held in common enterprise information layer in the FRM server with overnight files sent from existing JDE and real time interfaces with ERP. Old reporting and FRM systems will be retired at the same time.

The new platform will be accessible via the intranet and from any Unihei managed computing device (including smartphones). It will be a single source of information for the whole company which will cater to all reporting needs of various stakeholders.

In some cases, stakeholders will request new base data fields not available in ERP or JDE, a strategic decision has been made to build these in JDE or ERP. Aggregation, calculation, and presentation will be performed from the base data by BI system (OLAP server).

There will be a suite of standard reports built for all stakeholder groups, from executive dashboards to detailed financial data reports. The distribution team will be trained in BI analytics, with ability to create new reports or change the existing suite.

A high level business case has been approved to fund the next phase, which is to

define the report requirements and high level design of the reports;

identify all new data requirements and data sources;

identify all system interfaces;

map any new FRM processes, capturing roles and responsibilities of all parties;

build a data dictionary and validate all current report calculations (from excel spreadsheets);

create & validate a data hierarchy model;

define Identity and Access Management (IAM) requirements; and

develop a budget and time frame to do detail design, build, test, and implement.

How to Proceed

1. Define Future State

Describe desired future capabilities, policies, resources, dependencies, infrastructure, external influences, and significant relationships between these elements.

Name the BA techniques that were utilized and describe why these techniques were selected.

Document any assumptions and categorize them as guidelines or tools, explaining why these were important in your response.

2. Assess Risks

Describe the risks associated with achieving the future state and the mitigation strategies, which will be used to prevent those risks, reduce the impact of the risk, or reduce the likelihood of the risk occurring.

Name the BA techniques that were utilized and describe why these techniques were selected.

Document any assumptions and categorize them as guidelines or tools, explaining why these were important in your response.

3. Define Change Strategy

Describe the roles, responsibilities, and reporting structures that are necessary during the change and are part of the solution scope.

Describe the different elements of SWOT and how it can be used to decide which change strategy is appropriate.

Document any assumptions and categorize them as guidelines or tools, explaining why these were important in your response.