SEEK deploy Oracle EPM cloud

Australia, September 6, 2024 —  

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Company Overview

SEEK, a market leader in online employment marketplaces, has been helping people live more fulfilling and productive working lives and assisting organizations in achieving success for over 25 years. Headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, and listed on the ASX, SEEK operates across Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, with minority investments in China, South Korea, and other countries. Leveraging unique data and technology, SEEK creates innovative solutions and insights into the future of work while ensuring the ethical use and protection of customer data. The company employs over 3,300 people across its regions. SEEK has been recognized as one of Australia’s Top Ten Places to Work in Technology by the AFR BOSS Best Places to Work awards for four consecutive years (2021-2024) and was named a 5-Star Employer of Choice by HRD Asia in 2024. Additionally, SEEK won four accolades at TalentCorp’s Life at Work Awards in Malaysia in 2023.

 

Problem Definition

SEEK, a global organization, was in the midst of a system upgrade, implementing the Workday ERP solution while using Anaplan for their planning and reporting needs. As part of this upgrade, they faced significant challenges, particularly falling behind in implementing their new reporting application. The company sought to streamline its budgeting and planning processes to ensure consistency and efficiency across all global regions. They aimed to unify finance reporting, workforce planning, and project planning under a single, cohesive process. The existing setup, characterised by disparate processes for similar outputs, resulted in high costs and inefficiencies. SEEK needed a solution that could integrate their Financials(Opex), Revenue, Project, and Workforce processes to reduce costs and improve process adherence across their global operations. Recognising these needs, SEEK selected J&M’s services to implement a comprehensive solution that would address these challenges and optimize their planning and budgeting processes.

  

Services Provided

SEEK engaged J&M to implement Oracle EPM (Enterprise Performance Management) Solution to replace their existing system for their budgeting & planning, and reporting needs.

J&M worked closely with SEEK’s team from Australia and Asia in implementing Financial, Revenue, Project and Workforce processes. The relatively quick implementation was achieved by leveraging J&M’s extensive knowledge of the Oracle EPBCS implementations and deep understanding of industry-wide processes.

 

Solution

To address SEEK’s challenges and streamline their budgeting and planning processes, J&M implemented a comprehensive solution that significantly enhanced user experience and operational efficiency.

The application empowered SEEK to plan their Profit and Loss (P&L) at a detailed level, while the Workforce and Project Modules enabled comprehensive compensation planning either by individual employees or by positions. This flexibility allowed regions to choose between employee-based or position-based planning, or to use a combination of both as needed. The robust application supported SEEK in budgeting and forecasting on a monthly, quarterly, or half-yearly basis, providing the necessary granularity and adaptability for precise financial management.

The user experience was greatly improved with the adoption of Oracle SmartView, an Excel-based add-in that provided a familiar and intuitive interface for users. Additionally, the implementation of Tasklists enabled users to manage and complete their tasks more efficiently, fostering better workflow and productivity.

By consolidating Actuals and Planning data into a single cube, alongside Group Planning data within the same database, all necessary information was centralized. This consolidation not only facilitated easier reporting but also significantly reduced the time and effort required to source data from disparate systems during reporting cycles. The unified business logic for financials and workforce planning across regions ensured consistency and accuracy in the planning and reporting processes.

Moreover, J&M ensured that the project was completed within the timeframe that SEEK management required, aligning with the overall ERP implementation timeline. This timely completion helped minimize disruptions and allowed SEEK to achieve their system upgrade goals efficiently.

In summary, J&M’s solution provided SEEK with a unified, efficient, and scalable budgeting and planning system. The centralized data and streamlined processes enhanced user experience, reduced operational costs, and improved overall reporting accuracy and efficiency, enabling SEEK to better manage their global operations.