Beacon
Application Services and PeopleSoft:
A Financial Services Success Story
American Century
Investments Leverages PeopleSoft Applications to Manage Explosive Growth
American Century Investments and Beacon Application Services implemented
five PeopleSoft applications in nine months, with deployment of General
Ledger in 5 months. The implementation provided an integrated solution for
American Century to manage their explosive growth and paved the way for
higher-value analytical applications to be implemented.
PeopleSoft Products Implemented:
PeopleSoft Financials and Distribution
General Ledger
Payables
Purchasing
Asset Management
Project
The Customer
American Century Investments is a mutual fund company serving nearly two
million individual and institutional investors. Through its broad selection
of nearly 70 mutual funds, the Kansas City-based company manages
approximately $84 billion in assets. Since American Century Investments was
founded in 1958, the company has evolved from two mutual funds to a
multi-disciplined investment organization employing over 2,600 people.
American Century Investments offers the fifth largest direct marketed fund
family in the country.
The Challenge
American Century Investments had been trying to manage its explosive growth
with inflexible, aging or manual financial systems that did not support
product line reporting. An integrated solution was needed that could be
implemented quickly and built on for the future in order to move into higher
value applications like Enterprise Performance Management.
The Solution
To meet these challenges, American Century Investments partnered with Beacon
Application Services to implement the PeopleSoft Financial and Purchasing
applications. Fulfillment of the strategic business objectives demanded
quality systems within aggressive timeframes. In addition, American Century
financial and IT staff needed to know how to manage and grow these systems
after deployment. The American Century / Beacon project team met all of
these objectives due to American Century’s commitment and Beacon’s
experience and expertise with PeopleSoft applications. The team decided on a
phased approach, implementing General Ledgerfirst with the remaining
applications following in rapid succession.
Robert T. Jackson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of American Century Investments, said his company has benefited from Beacon’s alliance with PeopleSoft. "The Beacon Application Services team not only knew PeopleSoft, but also knew how to apply the software to our business processes. With their help and guidance, we successfully implemented five PeopleSoft applications in nine months, and also gained the experience and knowledge necessary to implement future applications."
Why PeopleSoft and Beacon
Application Services?
American Century Investments selected PeopleSoft based on previous success
with PeopleSoft’s Human Resources applications. Additionally, PeopleSoft and
its robust and growing set of ERP applications are aligned with American
Century’s corporate vision and long-term strategy. Beacon Application
Services was chosen as American Century’s implementation partner due to the
experience and expertise of its consultants’ industry experience and
Beacon’s proven success in rapid implementations of PeopleSoft applications.
Benefits
The early success of the General Ledger implementation, live within five
months, laid the foundation for solid applications that supported American
Century’s driving need for timely business information. Serving as the
centerpiece of the PeopleSoft enterprise systems, General Ledger was the
primary source for analytical information to run the business and report
externally. Utilizing the inherent flexibility of PeopleSoft architecture
and tools, American Century was able to obtain vast improvement in their
ability to analyze and report financial results without overcomplicating how
the underlying transactions are recorded in the General Ledger. Having the
cornerstone of financial information in place, American Century was then
able to gain significant process improvements in:
managing
cash more effectively through the use of Accounts Payable;
integrating
payment to project information;
managing
both depreciated and non-depreciated assets, including interfacing to a Real
Estate Tracking system and advanced technologies in scanning;
proving
the ability to separately track projects at varying levels of detail by
account types;
creating
a stable, sensible environment for the addition of PeopleSoft Budgets to
streamline the communication of budget information between the financial
planning and analysis department and the budget participants in the various
operating departments.
Additionally, American Century was then able to adopt newer technologies, such as PeopleSoft Enterprise Performance Management, allowing them the ability to store the necessary data to identify and manage the activities (and therefore the drivers and cost objects) associated with the main metrics of their business such as channel, service level, customer and product.
How Beacon Application
Services Added Value
Beacon Application Services provided a small team of highly experienced
consultants who worked closely with the American Century team to maximize
knowledge transfer and to ensure a smooth production deployment. Beacon
partnered with American Century in planning the implementation, managing
scope, and monitoring overall progress and resource commitment. Beacon’s
commitment to knowledge transfer and detailed documentation and procedures
empowered American Century’s end users. Together, the Beacon/American
Century team met its deadlines and delivered a high-quality system that was
easy to use, maintain and expand.
© 2008 Beacon Application Services Corporation. All rights reserved.