Groupflow EPM - Corporate Performance Management Europe Solutions/Service Company

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Groupflow EPM: Bolstering Fintech With a Focus on Accountability

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Paul James Coleman, Owner, Groupflow EPMPaul James Coleman, Owner Successful entrepreneurial ventures are often based on ideas that strive to plug gaps in the marketplace. And most often, entrepreneurs stumble upon these gaps either from personal experience or something they hear in passing. For Paul James Coleman, his long-standing experience working with different consulting companies inspired him to found Groupflow EPM, a specialist in the design, implementation, and maintenance of enterprise performance management (EPM) solutions.

While working as an SAP BFC consultant, Coleman observed that despite the role EPM plays in fostering business agility, it is often an afterthought. “Many companies view EPM as too niche and fear that its implementation is overly disruptive, complex, and expensive,” he says. Hence, they turn to EPM service providers that offer innovative EPM solutions with varying competencies to remain competitive and agile.

The successful implementation of EPM depends entirely on the EPM consultant’s ability to identify business requirements and design the application around those requirements. “However, this is where often a gap exists. Most EPM consultants in the current landscape lack the required ‘core consulting skills.’ While they possess the necessary technical knowledge and process expertise, they often tend to be opaque when it comes to their customers. This is to build dependency,” explains Coleman.

He realised that to achieve maximum value from their EPM, businesses need a transparent, trustworthy partner and has the necessary functional expertise. This led him to establish Groupflow EPM in 2018. Today, Groupflow EPM is on a mission to help a wide range of large multi-national customers implement SAP EPM projects successfully. The firm enables companies to have trust and confidence in their EPM strategy by delivering high-end expertise, tools, and training. “We work with our clients to design optimal EPM solutions that enable them to achieve maximum performance. Our experience stems from a strong pedigree of success in leading SAP EPM implementation projects, training as well as delivering high-end EPM and group financial reporting solutions for our customers across different sectors,” avers Coleman, owner of Groupflow EPM.

Groupflow EPM offers a comprehensive set of consulting services that include design, implementation, and SAP Financial Consolidation (SAP FC/SAP BFC) and SAP Disclosure Management. “We are experts in delivering group and regulatory reporting solutions through the implementation, maintenance, and training of the SAP EPM tool set.


We work with our clients to design optimal EPM solutions that enable them to achieve maximum performance

We focus on enterprise performance management as a discipline and bring the necessary expertise and skills of group accounting, financial consolidation, IFRS and regulatory reporting content along with strong technical background in SAP EPM solutions,” informs Coleman. Groupflow EPM currently offers onsite and remote services to its customers across the EU, EEA and UK. While the firm is rooted in Scotland, they offer their services globally.

Extracting Maximum Value from EPM

Groupflow EPM provides Solution Architect Services covering statutory, management and regulatory reporting. By combining content knowledge with project management experience and technical know-how, the firm offers customers a unique blend of skills to ensure success. The company specialises in providing bespoke and standard training packages in the following SAP EPM modules for system administrators and end-users: SAP FC Administrator Foundation and Advanced, SAP FC Operational User, SAP FC Reporting Advanced, SAP Disclosure Management, and SAP EPM Add-in, among others. Besides, Groupflow EPM’s teams have in-depth technical expertise and knowledge of best practice implementation to design, build, and maintain Group and Regulatory Reporting solutions in the SAP EPM technology stack. “We can help with functional design, build and maintenance; assessment of landscape and strategy; system upgrades and migrations, fine tuning, rationalisation, and performance improvement, as well as provide helpdesk support,” states Coleman.

Over the past few years, vendors within the EPM landscape have been re-positioning their products; SAP’s S/4 HANA platform is replacing the old set of (acquired) technologies. This has resulted in the uptake of financial consolidation software for large and complex multinationals within the context of a larger S/4 HANA project. To that end, Groupflow EPM is now more involved with regulatory reporting and XBRL services. Along with statutory reporting, the firm also offers regulatory reporting solutions in the following frameworks: European Banking Authority (EBA) Capital Requirements CRDIV and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) Solvency II.

Promoting Informed Business Decision-Making

A notable aspect of Groupflow EPM is that the team embeds knowledge transfer in everything it delivers.

“Our offerings cover everything within the EPM environment, including data flow, system architecture, solution design, hands-on configuration, performance improvement, and training. We also have strong finance and group reporting expertise which helps us always to stay a step ahead of our competitors,” remarks Coleman. Furthermore, the firm's eye for customer-centricity and its commitment to go the extra mile to meet individual clients’ needs and work with them to deliver great solutions and outcomes has earned it significant recognition from international customers in the financial services industry. “We emphasise the importance of knowledge acquisition; we encourage our clients to build upon the necessary skills in-house,” states Coleman.

  • We focus on enterprise performance management as a discipline and bring the necessary expertise and skills of group accounting, financial consolidation, IFRS and regulatory reporting content along with strong technical background in SAP EPM solutions

Highlighting Groupflow EPM’s services’ effectiveness is the firm’s success story with a large Scandinavian bank. The client was facing significant issues with regard to process and data quality when attempting to reconcile statutory financial statements with regulatory templates. Before Groupflow EPM’s collaboration, the customer used a robust and well-established financial consolidation system to obtain the balance sheet and income statement figures. The issue was that there was no real thought given to the actual structure of the regulatory reporting data. Through a thorough re-design of the regulatory reporting solution and alignment with the statutory financial statements, Groupflow EPM provided the bank with an integrated solution that aligned with their statutory, management, and regulatory views. “The customer now has automated insight of where regulatory reporting items originate from and can map data to the regulator's data point model. Furthermore, system administrators can also maintain the solution in-house without depending on external consultants,” says Coleman.

With its profound commitment, Groupflow EPM continues to script similar client success with each passing year. And, the company doesn’t plan to stop there. “We aim for ultimate transparency so that the user can take ownership of their SAP EPM solutions going forward,” wraps up Coleman.

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Top 10 Corporate Performance Management Consulting Companies in UK – 2021
Groupflow EPM

Company
Groupflow EPM

Headquarters
Edinburgh, Scotland

Management
Paul James Coleman, Owner

Description
Groupflow EPM is on a mission to help a wide range of large multi-national customers implement SAP EPM projects successfully. The firm enables companies to have trust and confidence in their EPM strategy by delivering high-end expertise, tools, and training. Groupflow EPM offers a comprehensive set of consulting services that include design, implementation, and SAP Financial Consolidation (SAP FC/SAP BFC) and SAP Disclosure Management. The company focuses on enterprise performance management as a discipline and brings the necessary expertise and skills of group accounting, financial consolidation, IFRS and regulatory reporting content along with strong technical background in SAP EPM solutions