Avantor’s finance and analytics transformation with PwC

Finance transformations are not all black and white but come with a lot of nuances. As such, once businesses have taken the initiative to revamp and update their financial departments, maximizing visibility improvement and reporting accuracy become top priorities. 

Leading pharmaceutical and life sciences company that provides products, services and solutions, Avantor, recently embarked on a mission to refocus its external financial reporting segments and organize them into core business segments as part of a business transformation. The desired outcome was to bring more clarity to external reporting and more efficiency into internal management reporting, without disrupting existing ERP systems. 

To help with this, Avantor engaged professional services firm PwC to assist with addressing these needs with the implementation of SAP S/4 Central Finance (CFIN), Master Data Governance (MDG), Group Reporting (GR), ERP Data Warehouse (Sidecar) and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC).  

“To do so, we needed to reorganize our products and offerings into new operating segments. We also wanted to establish a master data management solution along with the SAP S/4 Central Finance platform that would allow for consolidation, planning and reporting at both summarized and detailed levels,” Katrin Ragaz, SVP of enterprise solutions and integrations at Avantor, said. 

Solving external reporting with SAP 

Responding to this challenge, PwC assisted with the implementation of CFIN and MDG functionalities, which involved integrating legal entities and financial master data from existing general ledger systems across the two main SAP ERPs on a real-time basis and integrating non-SAP systems into a universal CFIN repository – enabling reporting on new operating segments. 

As Central Finance replicates financial transactions from the source systems and allows errors to be monitored as they occur, the solution provided Avantor with the resources and capabilities to effectively manage financial consolidation and planning, reporting and analysis processes. 

“From there, we established group reporting for financial consolidation and implemented SAC Reporting with ERP Data Warehouse’s (EDW) HANA Sidecar. The solution provides real-time visibility in one system with transparency down to the transactional level,” Ragaz explained. 

PwC worked with Avantor to set up a strategy that combines the key elements of technology and people to align company-wide financial and analytical reporting. This strategy helped reduce multiple reports scattered across data sources and establish custom reports from HANA Sidecar, as well as standard reports and Fiori Apps. 

“These streamlined reports have enabled us to help improve communication and reduce manual work. We’ve standardized business processes, improved transparency, brought clarity to decision-making and increased user-friendliness,” the SVP reported. 

PwC’s own Phase 0 approach, which updates key details like the job catalogue, for example, before engaging the technology vendor, was applied during the design, helping to cut the implementation time by one to two months. The approach was also informed by PwC’s knowledge of SAP industry practices, allowing the company to gain a deep understanding of program challenges and define parameters.  

As a result of these team efforts, Avantor now meets the Securities and Exchange Commission’s reporting requirements and relies on better analytics because of the consistent master and transaction data for business analysis. 

“Embracing this new technology has been a game-changer for us,” Ragaz said while adding: “We’ve reshaped our business segments, streamlined our financial processes and improved the reliability of our data. It’s really shown what can be achieved when you pair innovative tech with our business goals.” 

This successful finance and analytics transformation demonstrates the power of leaning on the strengths of innovative technology and experienced professionals, along with reaping the benefits of leveraging SAP S/4HANA for Central Finance.