105: OneStream Podcast Partner Spotlight with Nova Advisory

Welcome back to CPM Customer Success, the podcast for office of finance leaders on their OneStream journey. Hi, I'm your host, Andy Smatana, and we're doing something a little different today. We're here in the middle of Splash OneStream's annual user conference down in Orlando. And to mark this week's conference and mark the occasion, we're running a special episode.

Earlier this month, my Nova advisory colleagues, Liz Weir and Matt DeCarlo, sat down with Peter Fugere, Chief Solutions Officer at OneStream, for the OneStream podcast partner spotlight series. The conversation was so good and so relevant to where most of you are in your CPM journey that we asked OneStream if we could re-air this for our community. A few things to listen for. First, the real story behind CPM Express, not the marketing version.

Liz and Matt walk through why the pre-work and accelerator framework is changing project economics, even for enterprise customers with go lives in the ten to fourteen-week timeframe instead of months. Second, the fatigue problem. If you've ever lived through a months-long implementation where the energy dies after requirements, you'll appreciate Matt's take on why getting a reconciled report in front of the CFO inside the first few weeks of the project completely changes the tenor of the project.

And third, where AI is actually showing up inside OneStream, not someday, but right now. Peter drops a great line. He says, "I feel at some point we're showing fire to a caveman for the first time." You'll want to hear the full context on that one.

All right. Enjoy the episode, and I'll catch you on the other side The OneStream Global Education Services team proudly presents the OneStream podcast with your host, Peter Fugere. Greetings, fellow OneStreamers, and welcome to the OneStream podcast, where we explore and examine all things OneStream, talk to experts in the industry, and gain knowledge from some of the brightest minds that help deliver and implement solutions for our clients. This episode is part of the Partner Spotlight series, where we explore and examine fundamental concepts, tools, and topics surrounding OneStream and our partners who implement them.

I'm your host, Peter Fugere, Chief Solutions Officer at OneStream Software. As always, I'm excited to bring this discussion today and grateful to welcome Matt DiCarlo and Liz Ware. Welcome to the podcast, guys. Thanks, Peter.

Thank you. It's great to be here. Yeah, happy to have you back. And, and you guys have been...

Well, Nova's been on the podcast before, but, uh, for the listeners who maybe didn't catch that one, why don't, why don't you give us a little bit of an update on who Nova is, what you guys do, and, and maybe what's been going on since the last time we talked? Yeah, that's great. So Peter, um, thanks for the intro. Yeah, Nova Advisory is, um, a diamond implementation partner in the OneStream space, so the top tier of partners.

We're very proud of that designation. And we have about 70 consultants, um, and we only focus on OneStream. So that's all we do. Okay.

We get really excited when new release notes come out and new framework for CPM Ex. And there's, you know, a lot of people that really, uh, look forward to hearing about that 'cause this is, this is all we do. Um, but we've been, uh, implementing OneStream itself for probably about eight or nine years. Uh, we have a lot of senior architects on our team, so some, you know, including Matt on this call, who know quite a bit, um, have a lot of experience in this space, just CPM, but also for OneStream.

And a lot of us have functional backgrounds as well. So I was a CPA in a prior life, and Matt was, too, and, uh, we also have, like, heads of FP&A and heads of, uh, treasury and others, like, people with really functional experience that we bring to our teams that help drive out requirements and do successful projects. So, um, yeah, that's a little bit about us. And, and, uh, it's, uh, great to be back on the podcast.

If memory serves, Peter, I believe the last time we did a podcast together may have been three years ago. We focused on prototyping, uh, which still is one of our major focuses and the, um, keys to our success at, at, at, at Nova, for sure. We still have a very strong prototype methodology, which we still use for CPOnics. Now, where are you guys?

I know M-Matt and I are old school. We've been around for a long time. So I know Matt. I know he's out in Colorado.

But where are most of the, the team for Nova? Are they scattered throughout the US? Are you mostly... Where, where is everybody?

We have a mix. So we have physical, um, offices. Our home office is in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Okay.

Uh, we have a strong concentration of our consultants there. We also have an office in Orlando, Florida, Chicago, and Mexico City. And then the rest of- Oh, wow ... our consultants that are not based in those four offices really just work virtually.

Um, so we really have, we have resources covering, um, Asia. We have a handful over in Asia. We have a handful in Europe, and then the majority of our teams here in North America. Okay.

You mentioned CPM Express. Yeah. That's, that's a big, that's a big, uh, passion of mine. I've been, I've been really involved with it.

I'm excited to talk about it today. How many CPM Express projects have you done? So, uh, we have worked on, um, Unleashed, which was our very first CPMX project, which Matt worked on, and then, um, Johns Manville, um, let's see here, Bundy Baking Solutions. Those are all in flight right now, going very well.

And, uh, we've actually been using some of the CPMX bra- framework for some of our regular implementations, so enterprise accounts and so forth. There's pieces of it that we really like and are p- taking pieces and components of it and putting it into our, our traditional implementations as well. So I'd say almost all of our implementations, probably from last June and forward, have some component of CPM Express in, uh, in the implementation itself. Now, I'm curious, and I'll, I'll tell you some of my experience, you know, working with, with different partners, but I'm really interested to hear what you guys think.

Um, when we first started with Express, the focus was, you know, like a smaller commercial customer, maybe... or maybe a customer that was more focused on standing up core CPM. What we found is that a lot of the practices and the accelerator that we're using are... They're, they're benefiting almost everybody.

And, and now this is becoming like a go-to-market motion just generally that we're, we're seeing that there's a way to really, uh, impact implementation by using this accelerator. What do, what do you guys see? Yeah. Matt, I'll let you weigh in, but I honestly, I don't...

I, I feel that it was first sold as a commercial solution. Yeah. If you think about it, there's really not a lot of difference between $100 million company that is multi- multicurrency and consolidations and $100 billion company. You still have to do data loads into the system, translation, cash flow, all of those things.

It's just for a lot more users, and the scaling's a little bit different, but it's still a good foundation for both. But I don't know, Matt, what are your thoughts? Agreed. Um, a- as you mentioned, Liz, I've used it in standard implementations as well.

Uh, this kind of even dates back to the old blueprint days. So, you know, there's definitely crossover between blueprint and CPMX. Uh, there's just great, uh, building blocks to, uh, inherit into any application whatsoever, uh, especially on the consolidation side. Uh, you know, GAAP is GAAP and, and thus, it, it's great to leverage those.

It's nice to have standard methodology across our firm as well, so that when consultants, you know, help other consultants, they know what they're stepping into and can expect, you know, some of these components that are, are standard, uh, they... embedded into CPMX. So it's been a great, great utility for us. Yeah, that's, that's great to hear.

I mean, especially, too, I think, you know, the, knowing the work that we've put into it and, and the, you know, the thought around the design and everything like that. What kind of challenges have you guys seen on implementations? What has that been like? I don't feel, at least my experience, Matt, um, we have the same issues we always do.

It doesn't matter if it's a CPMX project or an implementation. If their data isn't clean, well, it's going to be a tricky data, historical data conversion process. If the client is not engaged or takes, you know, uh, puts this as, as one of their top priorities, you can have delays in the project as well. I think what I, what I really like about the projects for CPMX is actually the pre-workbooks, so the three books we send out to, uh, the teams when, before we start, so the dimension workbook, security workbook, and workflow.

What we're finding is that it's really allowing the clients to get their, get their act together in a nice way to really figuring out, having internal conversations of things that need to be done, and that by the time we start the kickoff for the project, a lot of the major decisions have been made, and that's been a really, really helpful for us with the, the efficiency of the project. Of course, we're very involved in the pre-work. We, we have working sessions e- up until the kickoff, but I really think that's been one of, in my opinions, um, helps with some of the risks that all projects have by forcing them to really have their act together before we start the project.

Yeah. I, I think the pre-work is, is really one of the big drivers of, you know, sort of shortening up that initial requirements and design. I mean, I, I, I also think, too, there's gonna be customers who, who wanna sit down and go through a roadmap. But, you know, I, I think the customers that maybe don't wanna put that time up front, you know, there, there's some comfort in knowing that there's nothing in the design or approach that's gonna limit you from adding something else later.

You know? Um, that risk is, you know... The risk, you know, you might have to do some redesign work, it's, it's gonna be the same, I think, regardless, right? I agree, and I think that's a part, too, Peter, where the roadmapping needs to happen as part of the, the pre-sales process.

Yeah. Like, by the time you get, you commit to having a client doing CPM Express, there should be no surprises. They, they know what phase one is, and they'll have the comfort in knowing what phase two and beyond would look like. Um, that's something that we at Nova are really big on, trying to educate the capabilities of CPMX and really explaining it's just a jumping-off point for future phases.

And then what those phases are, of course, you know, we can talk about before the project starts, but I find those conversations to be even more efficient when the client gets to learn what OneStream can do, like really gets in the system, and then you have some really good conversations I also think too, you know, and, and I've been involved with a couple projects personally. I, I think one of the things I've seen is that the whole tenor of the implementation changes. I mean, when a customer's walking around with a reconciled report after just two, three, four weeks, like, that changes, that changes a project.

And even before my, my time before OneStream, you know, sometimes we'd have implementations, and Matt, you know too, it Sometimes it was months before we were able to give them a reconciled report, right? Like- Yes, yes ... you know? And, and that, that sort of each week, each time you send an invoice , you know, the, the pressure ratchets up.

The CFO starts asking, "Where, where is the data? When am I gonna see a report?" You know? It just changes the whole feeling, the vibe of the project when, you know, when you e- you can actually show some progress sooner than later.

Is that your experience too? Yeah. For me personally, it absolutely is. I, I also think there's als- also a component of fatigue, to your point, Peter, where- Yeah, great point ...

people get very excited about requirements and very excited at discovery, and they then are like, "What's next?" Right? And with a traditional build process, even with prototypes, it's gonna be a couple weeks before you may even see reports with your data and so forth. So by, by basically moving up some of the work with the pre-work so that you are starting to load data and looking at reports fairly quickly, you keep them engaged and excited.

Yeah. I mean, it's true. When a project goes on for months, like, how do you just not get fatigued? You know what I mean?

It, it just wears you down, for sure. Oh, absolutely. What are you guys seeing for, like, a start to finish on some of these projects? Like, a typical, you know, midsize, maybe a c- a client with a couple years of data.

What, I ... Are you seeing a big change in your speed to implementation? Oh, yeah. I mean, we, you know, the, I think the ...

We've been hearing anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks for traditional CPM Express. We tend to see more of, like, 10 to 14, just because a lot of our clients really like to have, um, you know, maybe an additional parallel or things like that. And that's fine. You know, another testing cycle's never a problem.

But we are definitely seeing, you know, in the 12 to 14 week phase. That being said, we have some implementations, um, that we were just talking about where data was loaded very quickly, and then they were talking about next phases immediately. So they- That's awesome ... want to enroll into the next phases.

Yeah. And then one of our current customers, um, had a major acquisition occur f- day four of the project. So a bit of a, you know, they had a lot of anxiety around it, but actually OneStream is helping them- To get for the reporting they need on a future phase, which has been really great. So every client's unique in terms of kind of what the timeline looks like.

That's a really good point too. Like with, you know, with a faster... The, the quicker you can move with an implementation, you mitigate risk of the changing business. You know?

When you have a project that goes, you know, six, seven, eight, nine months or longer, for whatever reason, the company's not gonna stop doing business. They're adding new projects, they're reorg-ing, they're doing all that stuff. That imp- that impacts the project too. Like, you know, what you started with this design, a- and I've had, I've had CFOs leave in the middle of the project, and then it's like, you know, the new guy comes in and he wants to change the whole chart of accounts, and you're like, you know, "What do we do?"

You know what I mean? Like it, it's, it's crazy. W- with, with a faster, you know, getting that foundation up quicker, you're better able to use the product to help them with those, with those changes like a reorg or something like that. Yeah.

I, I agree. In this particular case, it felt actually really great for our team s- because they were anxious that they weren't gonna be able to consolidate this new acquisition. It was a substantial acquisition. And so previously, they were actually coming from Excel, and so that's a really, as you know, a tedious process to do a new- Yes ...

acquisition in Excel. And so the team being like, "No, no, because we've already started, it's going to be fairly straightforward for us to do another integration, another data source, bring the data into OneStream, and allow OneStream to do that consolidation for you," it's been, uh, they've been very happy with the process. And how do you get onto like a, a phase two? Let's say you get through that first, you know, 10 to 14 weeks and, and they're up and happy.

What, what's your... How do you pivot to that next phase for them? I, so, um, it... I wouldn't say we're even pivoting.

Okay. What's happening is we're in the implementation and they start asking questions about, "Oh, we'd like to do people planning next," or, "We would like to do some really rich driver-based forecasts," things like that. And what happens is it just kind of becomes like a natural extension of a project where, you know, "Hey, we, we've built this. Do you want us to start working on people planning," or whatever the next phase would be.

So it, it's not necessarily a pivot per se. Okay. It's just kind of an extension, a continued flow of implementation. And so do you guys take it on as, like do you focus on the core and then do like a, a phase, like one and one A- Yeah ...

where they're... Okay. That's correct. So it's almost like two, two workflows in parallel sort of thing?

That's right. Because we want- Yeah ... we want to show that, hey, we went live with, say, reporting in the 12 to 14 weeks. You know, really be like, "Hey, we're live," right?

And then you layer in the other phases, phase A- phase B, phase C, whatever it is. Yeah. I mean, everybody's got - I mean, nobody, nobody fits so perfectly into the box. And, and I think, too, if you're buying OneStream, you know, y-yeah, it's great at consolidation, it's great at planning, um, but you're buying it because, you know, y-you're struggling with something in your reporting, and you, you, you're probably trying to get to that use case as quick as possible, too.

You m- you might want the foundation, but there's always something that people wanna add with OneStream that, that's really unique and special that the product can handle, um, the quicker you can move to that. Yeah. That, that's what - That's the fun part, right? So we kinda c-customize everything or configure everything.

Sometimes it's fun. Sometimes it's a fun part . Yeah. We've had a couple where a little head-scratching goes on, and then we figure it out.

Yeah. But, uh, yep. Yeah. What are other things you've seen, like, you know, when you think of, like, core, uh, CPM, Core Express, I think of it as consolidation, planning, and maybe account rec.

What, what are you seeing people really engaging with? What do you guys focus on? I mean, Matt, I think y-you and I'd agree, it's really closing and solve first, uh, getting the reporting done, reporting out account recs is shortly thereafter. We are seeing more and more planning, though, Peter, and what's happening is they - a client that's coming from Excel or whatever their current CPM solution is, all they wanna get to is a perpetual planning cycle.

Forecasts that roll into budgets, budgets that roll into strat plans, things like that. And so- Yeah ... with - that's all they want. They're not asking for crazy planning out of the box.

That's all they wanna be able to do is just see, adjust, and then, you know, publish. So we are seeing quite a bit of that. Matt is handing - going hand in hand. But first and foremost, it's closing and solve.

Like, we are seeing that the most. Yeah. And that's always been, that's always been a fastball with OneStream. You know, um, the way the workflow's set up, the way the database is set up, the...

You know, there's the auditability, the financial intelligence. That's always been core. What's been interesting with planning is, um, you know, this new planning framework and then, uh, Workforce Planning Express, which is, which is coming out soon with a new version of, uh, Workforce Planning that's coming. And, and that, that's gonna be exciting, I think.

There's gonna be a lot of opportunity for more of that type of planning you're talking about, Liz, where, you know, I'm updating my, my employee expenses and calculating taxes, and I'm seeing that roll right into my forecast and, and update my forecast and, and help seed my budget and all that sort of stuff. So I think that's gonna be really exciting. I agree. I think we're all looking forward to the new people planning or, sorry, Workforce Planning, uh- Yeah ...

later this year. There's a lot of good performance improvements and, and other things. It's really gonna be a game changer. And what do you guys see with reporting?

Like, are, are there a lot of requests for additional reports? Or, um, how does the guided reporting within Express- Help our customers I'll start with this, Matt. I know you've got some specifics, but I, I just actually, um, am working on a CPMX project now where we show them the reports that were available, and they're very pleased. Balance sheet, income statement, cash flow, all great stuff, roll forward detail, stuff that they would need.

I will say it... all of the projects, CPMX projects we've done to date, there has been a request for at least, I don't know, five to ten custom reports because everyone's reporting is a little bit unique to them. Um, everyone does adjusted EBITDA a little bit differently. So there is a lot of...

I would say it's a great core. Um, and then from there we do, you know, min-minor little changes to, to get them to the reporting package they need. Yeah, similar experience. Um, what - the, the two that I've been involved in, they're coming from Excel.

So when you show them things like ad hoc reporting capabilities- Yeah ... within Excel against a CPM application, it blows them away. So, uh, they, they do, they, they love the ad hoc reporting capabilities. And then once you show them how to manipulate cube views, you know, they, they generally can take it and run with it.

So it, it's just light years different than what they're accustomed to in the Excel environment. Yeah. And I'll let you guys in on a secret. As we do more to integrate, you know, AI functionality within Express, there's new functionality within OneStream where you can tell an agent, "I need a report.

I need a P&L with comparing actuals and budget and showing me the difference," and it will generate that cube view for you. So- That's so exciting. Yeah. So im-imagine...

So take... I mean, this is like... I feel like at some point we're showing, like, fire to a caveman for the first time. Like, you know, if, if you're coming from Excel and you're struggling with, you know, "Hey, how am I getting my, how am I getting my data from my ledger reliably?"

And then the, the updates and managing that to you're asking an agent to build you a report, you know, and it, you know... We're, we're bringing in the data. We can sync the metadata. Um, that's, that's an Express project, um, I'm gonna be working on it where, um, we're gonna be bringing in data and updating the metadata, and then I can update those reports.

But then I don't even need to build the cube view. I have an agent that can build the cube view for me. I mean, this is g-this is gonna be, I think, really game changing. And if, if we're talking about being able to implement that in weeks instead of months and giving that type of functionality, I, I'm really excited for the future of Express and OneStream.

Like, I think it's gonna be, you know... I think it's gonna be crazy. Like you said, Matt, I'm, I'm over my career. You, like, you've seen people with Excel, and then you show them a cube view, and they're blown away.

Like, that's gonna be, that's gonna be a, a wow factor for sure. I agree. And I think it gives, it gets us to the, the thing we've always wanted to do, right? Where we allow our users and our customers to get back to analyzing the results versus spending all their time just trying to pull it all together.

Yeah. And this is where, you know, one of the things that I have clients that get the most excited about, not the most, but very excited about in OneStream, is variance commentary, flex comments, things they need from not only a controls perspective, but they also need to know for management reporting. And I think some of that, you know, if key views can be built, and then now users can go in and do their variance commentary, and now AI can analyze that commentary and provide summarized reports- Yeah ...

it saves so much time. Like, I'm really excited about some of the new stuff that's coming out with OneStream's AI. Well, it's, it's interesting. I mean, you know, m- Matt and I, you know, we're, we're old school, so go all the way back and, like, you know, I, I was talking to people about, you know, uh, you know, they had, like, basic Excel or spreadsheets and, and, uh, you know, we're trying to get them on Hyperion Enterprise, which was a, a flat file database, and that felt ground-shaking to them.

You know? And, and what's happened every time one of these technology advances happens, I think the people feel better about the reports, the data they have. There's a more consistency. There's, there's more, you know, uh, integrity with the numbers.

But then there... Liz, you said something that made me just think of this too. It's they have more time to analyze and understand what they're doing. You know, if I go all the way back and I think, you know, when I got out of college and I, I was helping people with these systems and, you know, they were, like, scrambling to get to the printer and copy enough and walk them around.

There was very little time to understand what was happening with the numbers, and now it's like, you know, if, if we're even taking time away from, you know, uh, account recs and, you know, some of this other nonsense that's, you know, that they need to do, but it's, like, tedious and not as value add, and they're spending more time understanding the numbers and what's happening in the business, I mean, that's a really... I think that's really powerful. I agree. I've, I've had more than one customer over the years that has said for, like, their monthly reporting packages, there have been months where they have just, "Does the balance sheet balance?

Does the cash flow balance? Does the, do the numbers foot in this schedule?" Right. And they send it.

Right. And because they have no time to analyze it. And because OneStream makes their lives, they're more efficient now, they are able to sp- you know, take a, take a breath. You know, everyone still has these deadlines that are Difficult, but they can at least take a breath, look at the numbers, and just evaluate them.

This will only get better as we use A- AI more and more. Yeah. And I th- and I think that's one of the goals with Express is to help get that foundation in and set up quickly so we can, we can do these other things, um, and it's available to them. And, and it could be, it could be use of AI, which is exciting and it's very promising.

It could be, you know, things like account rec solution. It could be ESG. It could be, you know, disclosure management. I mean, there's, you know, on and on, all these different things you can do with OneStream.

You can go in all these different directions, and I think it, it opens up a lot of opportunity. I agree. Another great discussion. Thank you very much for bringing your expertise to the podcast today.

And thank you, fellow OneStreamers, for joining us. Remember, if you like this content, please don't forget to subscribe. We'd love to hear from you. Questions, comments, concerns, please reach out at podcast@onestreamsoftware.

com. I look forward to bringing you another exciting podcast, and until then, take care, and I'll see you next time on The OneStream podcast. The OneStream podcast is brought to you by the OneStream Global Education Services team.