Integrating new acquisitions in professional services.

Having established a leading presence in its local markets, one of Oceania’s largest independent property services firms, Opteon, was targeting M&A growth in the US. The firm’s innovative technologies were a key competitive advantage in the American market, but Opteon was finding integrating new acquisitions challenging from an internal systems perspective.

“We had 30+ businesses all coming together at different stages, with different financial systems, unique remuneration structures, and learning and development requirements. It all had to be transitioned and combined into one system that could function across three distinct international geographies, without losing control of people and financial information,” explains Chief Financial Officer, James Harkness.

Making people data transparent and searchable.

For Opteon, Workday’s most important benefit was delivering one source of truth for people data. “Having all your onboarding, remuneration, succession planning and talent development in the one system is so much more practical than keeping it in three or four different places. That's probably the key benefit we've realized,” says James.

Now that Opteon has a clear, pan-global view of its employees' experience, skills, and competencies, workforce planning has improved markedly. “We have a high concentration of specialists. With Workday, rather than just moving to recruit someone, people can search internally for a particular skill set. It really helps us justify investing in certain areas versus others.”

Integrating financial reporting.

Using Workday, Opteon is in the process of integrating its financials from a structural and reporting perspective. James says he cannot wait to get everyone on the same finance system. “Our historical data transfer process was very clunky. The US team did the numbers in QuickBooks and sent them in a spreadsheet to Australia where our head entity is domiciled. We then put the data into Workday to see if the US numbers made sense from a consolidated perspective. If we discovered anomalies, the US team first needed to amend them in Quickbooks and send the data back for consolidation in a spreadsheet. Manual consolidation with a significant time zone difference means it takes around five days longer than it should to close our month-end books. Workday will help us solve that.”

Introducing common processes and practices.

James says automating workflows with standardized processes is better for both the business and employees. “It means recruitment and onboarding is a lot more streamlined than it was. After commencing with Opteon, our people are finding it much easier to use self-service to manage their pay, learning and time recording.”

He says the system will also enable Opteon to identify skills and establish connections across the globe, supporting collaboration. “I will be able to find colleagues quickly and reach out to them effortlessly.”

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