Transforming global finance operations with Workday

Over the years, the company had developed solid processes—but these were geared to Excel-based accounting solutions that aren’t built for modern, global enterprises. As Nicole Jetschowski, Manager of PwC Deutschland explains, “The company had outgrown their collection of fragmented legacy solutions and needed more transparency across complex entities—as well as more capability to plan finances at a global level." 

The shift to a more centralised and capable solution had seen the company implement Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) with PwC being the partner of choice to support them a few years earlier. Now, with strong ambitions and forecasts, they needed to complete the transition with Workday Financial Management. 

At its most basic level, the move from Excel to a more modern system and data model is more than just a process change. “It’s also a mindset shift,” says the finance lead and Workday project sponsor. “We have Excel and German GAAP in our genes. So, we knew the switch to Workday Fins, with different spend categories and so on, would be a significant change.” 

Beyond its core European markets, the expansion into regions including and Asia saw entities using a variety of other reporting standards and financial structures. So, with more expansion plans afoot, it was crucial to start harmonising finance and data across the footprint. 

On a more granular level, complex local tax requirements meant a reliance on local accountants. This would require a carefully staggered implementation, while different local banking requirements would need customised integrations and testing schedules to minimise disruption. 

The bespoke requirements around legacy constraints added to the complexity. For example, the previous model treated each project as a cost centre—a structure incompatible with Workday’s native functionality. Again, this would require some unique workarounds. 

Ultimately, the biggest challenge would be capacity—with the need to balance BAU responsibilities alongside the demands of transition. 

The transformation is an important milestone—enabling harmonised finance structures, cost centres and reporting elements across diverse business units and geographies. 

With data always at their fingertips, the finance team now has more ownership and insight. Importantly, the tailored design also strikes a balance between continuity and innovation—letting the company retain its strengths while empowering them to improve those vital Workday capabilities: more automation and less manual effort, better consistency and traceability, and enhanced agility and decision making by opening up the data. 

While transitioning from legacy systems comes with a learning curve, the organisation has embraced the challenge and upskilled quickly. “Processes are tailored according to our practices,” says the finance lead and Workday project sponsor. “It’s still early days but we’ve seen good improvements—understanding the system and streamlining workflows.” 

The biggest difference so far? “It’s a whole new level of transparency,” they say, “The new tools and real-time entity data provide excellent visibility of the business processes and where hold-ups are. This is important strategically, so we can quickly assign capacity within the team.” 

With core regions now live, the company is confident in the platform’s resilience and flexibility—ready to extend the new finance model when the time is right. As the finance lead and Workday project sponsor explains, “With some regions not yet onboard, we’re missing the granularity of owning and controlling that raw data—lacking that visibility and analysis.” Thanks to the scalable design and Workday flexibility, the company now has the choice to centralise operations or provide access to their local accounting partners. 

In terms of the wider business, there’s still more to come. “We’re excited to start making full use of the reporting functionalities,” they add. “This will provide even more visibility to support board-level decision making.”