Pearson PLC is the parent company to a family of large publishing and media businesses, including Pearson Education, the Penguin Group, and the Financial Times Publishing Group. Its subsidiaries run many different ERP and budgeting systems, but Pearson PLC has gained great insight into its overall performance by implementing systems to facilitate fast close in the management and statutory reporting processes.

BPM Magazine: In such a large, dispersed organization, how does Pearson manage performance across all of its divisions?

Noel Gorvett: Across the Pearson group, there are multiples of ERP and general ledger systems. We use SAP, Lawson, Sun, Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards -- they're all out there. From them, with all the variations of transaction level data, we consolidate monthly for management reporting to head office and divisional boards using Hyperion Financial Management. There are local applications within Pearson Education, Financial Times, and Penguin for their lower-level, more detailed reporting.

BPM: But HFM is where performance information gets consolidated so you can see the big picture for the company?

Gorvett: That's right.

BPM: So, what is included in these performance reports?

Gorvett: It's primarily from an actuals comparative perspective. All the businesses within the Pearson group do their planning and forecasting very differently due to the differences in the businesses that they run, so the group application is at a summary level for all scenarios.

BPM: What is your process for importing the appropriate information from all your G/L systems into HFM? Have you automated that process?

Gorvett: Well, automated to the extent that we possibly can. There's always room for improvement because not all the information that we collect is stored in the general ledgers. A lot of it is kept offline or is collected by users in the various divisions. So where possible -- and also where need be. There might be a division that's so small that they only need to put 10 numbers in, so why automate that?

The process starts with businesses using their general ledgers to do all their transaction management. Then they get to the end of the month to close their books; do a trial balance; and load that data, along with whatever supplementary information is required, into the HFM system where they do their consolidation, validation, and use process management to push it through. The business is now driven very much by process management. At the end of working day three each month, the divisions have received the data from their operating companies. The divisions then reconcile and consolidate that by end of day five, when they submit it through to PLC, who then have it to process on day six and do whatever topside adjustments need to be done. It normally ends up on the board table anytime between close of day six through day eight.