By John O'Rourke July 11, 2018
Innovation. We see it everywhere. Smart… phones, cars, appliances, thermostats, medical devices, TVs, speakers and more. In the software industry, there are several innovations now creeping into applications used by the office of Finance that are designed to improve productivity, and potentially replace humans. Think about all the buzz in the market about Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning. And there's much more beyond these hot buzz trends.
OneStream – Started with Innovation at its Core
So what does innovation mean at OneStream Software? Innovation is what we do and is at the core of how the OneStream Software company was founded. Before co-founding OneStream, Tom Shea, a veteran of the financial reporting software industry, founded UpStream which was acquired by Hyperion and became the Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management (FDQM) product. OneStream co-founder Bob Powers, invented, architected, implemented, and led the development organization for Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) in addition to leading development for all financial applications at Hyperion.
It's this deep experience in developing market-leading financial software, combined with a chance to do it all over again that spurred the development of OneStream. Having learned what worked and didn't quite work the first time around, the founders sought to start with a clean slate and create a completely fresh approach to corporate performance management (CPM).
OneStream Software provides a revolutionary CPM solution that unifies and
simplifies financial consolidation, planning, reporting, analytics, and financial data quality for sophisticated organizations. Deployed in the cloud or on-premise, OneStream XF is the first and only solution that delivers corporate standards and controls, with the flexibility for business units to report and plan at additional levels of detail without impacting corporate standards – all through a single application.
Showcasing Three Key OneStream Innovations
In a recent FSN Innovation Showcase Report, Gary Simon (CEO FSN & Leader of the Modern Finance Forum) highlights three key OneStream innovations that can impact the way Finance organizations work now, and in the future:
- Extensible Dimensionality®
- OneStream XF MarketPlace
- SmartCPMTM
Innovation 1: Extensible Dimensionality®
From the very start, OneStream's founders wanted to solve a widespread problem within the CPM market – the issue of the divergent requirements for business units and corporate Finance. In earlier generations of CPM software, disparate business units that needed to budget or plan at their unique and relevant levels of detail would often be forced to manage this in separate products and applications in order to address local reporting and planning requirements without jeopardizing the overall budgeting or consolidation requirements of corporate. Inevitably, compromises meant that local reporting entities often lost out to the more pressing needs of corporate finance.
OneStream has eliminated the historic tension between corporate and operating units by removing the need to build and maintain separate applications to accommodate specific business unit reporting requirements. OneStream's Extensible Dimensionality® allows business units to develop their own budgets and financial reporting to suit the level of granularity they need, within a single instance of the OneStream platform, while also rolling this data up into the standard chart of accounts or other standards required by corporate Finance.
In the report, Mr. Simon provides more details about this "secret sauce" that's at the core of the OneStream XF (XF stands for extensible finance) platform.
Innovation 2: The XF MarketPlace
All businesses are inherently different which is why a single piece of software can never be all things to all people. Progressive vendors know they must continually update and improve their service to meet the diverse needs of their customers. Sometimes though, universal upgrades aren't enough and specialized solutions are required for specific situations. Recognizing that these specialized solutions may benefit a number of customers, OneStream has made these solutions available for download by customers and partners via the innovative XF MarketPlace.
Modeled on an app-store, customers can select the solutions they need, quickly download them onto their existing OneStream XF platform, configure and deploy them to address new requirements, without having to resort to in-house development, spreadsheet workarounds or integrating third-party software.
The OneStream XF MarketPlace now includes over 40 solutions, including Specialty Planning solutions like People and Capex Planning, Financial Close and Reporting solutions like Account Reconciliations and Lease Accounting, as well as Productivity Tools like Guided Reporting and Postal Service.
Innovation 3: SmartCPMTM
Central to the concept of SmartCPM is the ability to handle multiple customer
requirements (i.e., consolidation, reporting, planning, analysis, and data quality) in a single application, which can be extended and grown as companies add business units and new data dimensions. Deployable on-premise or in the cloud with full interoperability, OneStream's unified environment provides the platform for these capabilities through data blending, scalability, interchangeability and machine learning.
Learn More
FSN's 2018 Innovation in the Finance Function research report shows unequivocally a strong link between innovation and performance. Those organizations that are early adopters of technology or invest in innovation in a balanced way across the enterprise, outperform organizations that are lagging behind. These leading finance functions close their books faster, produce more accurate financial forecasts and are less tied to legacy systems and traditional ways of working.
To learn more about FSN's view of how OneStream is innovating, download the Innovation Showcase Report on OneStream Software.
John O'Rourke is Vice President of Product Marketing at OneStream Software. With a background in accounting and finance, John has over 30 years of experience in the software industry, including 20 years of experience in product marketing at Hyperion Solutions, Oracle and Host Analytics. He has worked with many customers and partners on financial reporting and planning initiatives and has spoken and written on many topics in corporate performance management. John has also held positions in strategic marketing and product marketing at Dun & Bradstreet Software, Kenan Systems and Decisyon. Find me on:
