Finance transformation at Ontic Engineering

Ontic is a globally trusted provider of aerospace products with a long-standing history in manufacturing pedigree parts for aircraft in the commercial, military, business aviation, and rotorcraft markets. They are an established OEM manufacturer and invest in OEM technologies. Ontic also provides maintenance, repair and operations services. Based in the UK, Ontic also operates in Singapore and across the US.

Since established 45 years ago, Ontic has licensed or acquired over 7,000 product lines from leading aviation OEMs. The entire business and infrastructure is uniquely optimised to support legacy parts and products for as long as their customers need them, creating long-term, sustainable value for their customers. This is the Ontic Extended Life Solution worldwide.

After being sold by its parent company, Ontic needed expert advice and technical assistance in migrating from SAP BPC and Blackline. With a tight fixed deadline, Ontic turned to the team at Concentric Solutions to help solve their dilemma while achieving their strategic goals and minimising interruption to existing customers, suppliers and OEMs.

The challenge

In October 2019, Ontic Engineering & Manufacturing (UK) Limited was sold by its previous parent company BBA Aviation PLC. As a result, it required its own IT system to aid collection, consolidation and reporting of financial and results.

The catch? Ontic was bound to a 12-month transitionary services agreement (TSA) which stipulated that a new system be in place for management reporting by October 2020. An extension of this deadline would incur significant costs.

The key issues identified by our team were use of disparate systems creating multiple versions of the truth, users manually moving data between applications, issues with paper-based account reconciliations and users working off complex spreadsheets.

As an added hurdle, the entire project had to be managed and delivered remotely due to the outbreak of Covid-19.

The solution

Ontic required an optimised cloud solution for their management and statutory reporting, automation of their budgeting and planning, and better strategic planning capabilities. After a detailed evaluation was carried out by Concentric consultants, we suggested that OneStream offered the best-fit solution.

The project plan mapped out the implementation of an integrated solution underpinned by guided workflows. The project was to be completed in two stages with Phase One focusing on optimising core management and statutory reporting as the main priority. Phase Two focused on improving balance sheet reconciliations, streamlining budgeting and forecasting processes, and enhancing strategic planning.

Rather than a straightforward migration from SAP BPC, Concentric also incorporated a number of additional dimensions to deliver full automation of Group reporting while also supporting future structures and functionality.

These dimensions played an integral role later in the project in the custom strategic planning model, which seamlessly integrates with Ontic’s data warehouse: Snowflake.

Key solutions included:

• Monthly consolidation at group, divisional and regional levels.
• A centralised depository for balance sheet reconciliations.
• A single chart of accounts under OneStream.
• Statutory and Management Cash Flow automation.
• Various reporting structures to support differing views of data for the primary financial statements.
• Detailed Direct Margin Analysis by platform, value stream, license, and customer.
• Weekly flash forecasting and reporting.

Despite the fixed deadline, Concentric was able to deliver the project in only 6 months, removing significant additional costs that would have been incurred for extending the TSA period.

Key benefits 

• A single version of data truth for core financial reporting.
• Users can access all required reports through tailored interfaces.
• Extensive reporting suite available for quick and easy analysis.

The results 

The implementation of OneStream for Ontic Engineering transformed their financial close, budgeting, forecasting and planning processes in the following areas:

Financial Reporting & Consolidation

• One version of the truth.
• Streamlined and automated consolidation.
• Automated reporting packs.
• Workflow driven month-end process.

Budgeting & Forecasting Automation

• Fully automated driver-based balance sheet and cashflow modelling.
• Increased visibility into the impact of changing drivers, such as DSO and DPO.
• Time savings for what is already a labour-intensive task for any organisation.

Reconciliations Control & Certification

• Full balance sheet substantiation provided for auditors.
• Ability for management to review balances across the
• business in a single location.
• Increased ownership of balances through certification.

Strategic Planning

• Modelling huge amounts of historic data.
• Visibility of impact of sensitivities quickly with the click of a button.
• Scalable and flexible model.
• Data can be cut in many ways: by site/ platform/ license/ business unit.

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