Partner Highlight: Agium EPM

At OneStream we believe that every customer must be a success and reference which drives everything we do, even when it comes to selecting partners!

Get to know our partner, Agium EPM, and learn about their journey partnering with OneStream!

Pascal Walk, Managing Partner Agium EPM

Q. When did your relationship with OneStream get started?

A. Our relationship goes way back. We first heard about OneStream in 2013 from our network, that the former UpStream team had started a new company. We started asking around and learned about the three founders and what the focus was. The company was already booming in the US but didn't have much of a presence in Europe.

We started with a demo in 2013 by Craig Colby. We were impressed and wanted to learn more. In early 2014 we did a follow up call and signed on as a partner. The real kickoff of the partnership was in March or April of 2014 when the OneStream team visited us in Amsterdam, including Tom Shea, Craig Colby, Ricardo Rasche, Peter Fugere and Eric Davidson. We had a great meeting and then a dinner – and realized it was a great cultural fit.

Q. What did Agium see in OneStream that gained your trust and allowed you to partner with OneStream?

A. When we first heard the UpStream team started a new company, it was the same time Agium started a new venture – Agium EPM, with a focus on Oracle. But the team encouraged us to add another solution, so we created some criteria for this. It had to be something new. Cloud was new, so on-premise deployment was still important. It had to be unified – consolidation, reporting, planning, ETL etc. And it had to be scalable, so it could be extended to address additional requirements. The customers need a platform that is extensible and can provide a long runway for them. As you can see – OneStream clearly fit the bill.

Then when we spoke with Craig, he said the company had 100% customer satisfaction, which was a big difference from the Oracle customer base. And we found it was true by talking to customers. It was also a cultural fit, we had the same DNA from the beginning. The focus on customer success is very consistent with Agium EPM. We trusted the founders and respected their expertise. We struck gold!

Q. Who was your first customer with OneStream?

A. Our first customer with OneStream was the terminal division of a large Danish shipping company. This was in the Spring of 2015. Prior to that project we went through training, attended Splash in the US, and delivered some demos. OneStream had signed on this large shipping company and needed a partner to deliver the solution. Peter Fugere called us to help with the project, as well as other projects at the large shipping company.

Q. What do you view as the key advantages of the OneStream platform?

A. There are several advantages. First and foremost, no one else has a truly unified platform like OneStream. Customers are thrilled with the single point of maintenance they have in OneStream vs. legacy applications. We also get a lot of feedback from customers that OneStream was designed to follow finance processes. The Workflows and Task Manager really make life easy for the end users. OneStream ensures the data quality is kept up at the local level.

My favorite feature is the relational data blending. This is a game-changer! The intelligence in the cubes and detail available in the registry allow us to create some powerful solutions for our clients. So we leverage that in a lot of our designs.

We have taken advantage of this with our Lease Accounting solution. The early design of the Reporting Compliance XF MarketPlace solution was based on input from Agium. Some of our early input went to Christian Wetterwald and then rolled into the Lease Accounting solution.

Q. How many OneStream customers have you implemented to date?

A. We have done 62 OneStream projects at 34 companies. This ranges from full implementations, to lease accounting and other projects. Updates to OneStream are easy for customers to handle – so we were initially concerned about this. But what's great about OneStream is that users keep asking for more capabilities – so the projects continue to expand over time. Consolidation, Reporting, Account Reconciliations, Tax Reporting, Planning, etc. We average two projects per customer, some are as large as four to five projects.

We talk with customers about "core and more." Start small, get quick success, then expand and add additional capabilities. It never ends. All the customers come back for additional work. We currently have 21 OneStream-trained consultants on our team.

Q. How's it going with the Lease Accounting solution you have developed?

A. We have done 16 lease accounting projects to date. We are the go-to partner for this solution, and sometimes we work with other partners to deliver them. We have 11 more in the pipeline currently – mostly existing OneStream customers. Some new prospects are starting with Lease Accounting, then could evolve into an HFM replacement and other projects.

Q. What are some examples of the more compelling or interesting use cases you've seen?

A. Lease accounting/IFRS 16 is a big one. As I mentioned, the relational blending capability has been a big advantage here. We've also done some powerful equity pick-up projects. We have a base solution we use as a starting point and build on. Damen Shipyards wanted to have consolidation and planning/forecasting in one project, with profitability by line of business. This was a 9 month project – with P&L, BS and cash flow by ship. We used the relational registers to capture the detail and the project was a huge success with cubes for the calculations.

Another one is an international airport – replacing Oracle HFM and Planning, FDM. They have a detailed allocation model that is required by law. They can only allocate some of the costs to the runways. The law prescribes what costs can be allocated – so we are building this in OneStream. They currently use their ERP, HFM and Planning for this – it's very complex. We will roll the entire model into OneStream. If this is successful it could be leveraged with other airports.

Q. So, you've been working with OneStream since the beginning...what's changed?

A. Hmm, what has really changed? Well, everyone knows OneStream now, so it's much easier to sell. In the early days we had to explain it and educate people. It's much easier now with the recognition in the market. The platform has evolved quite a bit since 2013. It was very strong then, but it has really matured since then. The cloud was added, the XF MarketPlace, X-Scale and now BI/Analytics. And the XF MarketPlace has expanded greatly since 2013. The innovation and growth of the company has been amazing, you can see it in the growth at the Splash conference.

Q. What do you think the future holds for OneStream?

A. Great question. The OneStream platform is proven and can do amazing things. But OneStream realizes that growing the business depends on growing the partner community and ecosystem – and we are pleased about this.

On the Development side, the BI piece is really compelling. We are excited to see what's possible here, extending the OneStream footprint into new departments and users.

The further development of the XF MarketPlace opening up to partners is very exciting as well. We are proud and excited to be one of the pilot partners. There's no limit to what's possible with OneStream. Tax, Risk, Sustainability Reporting – we have many plans here.

The KKR investment can also yield big benefits and value. Everyone is curious to see where this will lead. OneStream has always lived up to its promise. We only leave happy customers. The software works, we can always make it happen.

There's no doubt in our mind that OneStream will be the #1 CPM solution in the world over the long term. And we look forward to being part of that!