EPM rollout in 8 weeks: a client story on consolidation and FP&A with OneStream and KPC

Your consolidation and your FP&A finally brought together in 12 weeks. That is not a promise. That is what we have done.

Every week, finance directors tell us the same thing: "We know we need to modernize our tool, but we do not have 18 months.".

We understand that objection. And we decided to answer it concretely — with figures and a real client story.

Why EPM rollout time is the real question

When a mid-market finance department sets out to modernize its consolidation or its FP&A, it does not fundamentally have a solution problem. It has a problem of time, of available resources and of confidence that it can be delivered. The previous generation of EPM projects built a reputation that is hard to shake: 12, 18, even 24 months of rollout, IT teams tied up, go-lives arriving too late, adoption a struggle. 

It is precisely to break that pattern that we structured, with our partner OneStream, a pre-configured approach that can be deployed in 8 to 12 weeks, bringing statutory consolidation and FP&A together on one single EPM platform, with a predictable cost from the outset. 

The 4 pain points of Finance teams in consolidation and FP&A

Before talking technology, let us start from the concrete pain points we see at our clients: 

• Financial consolidation and management reporting do not talk to each other. Two tools, two sets of reference data, hours lost every month reconciling figures that ought to be the same. 

• The consolidated close takes too long. The time it takes to produce the accounts eats into the time for analysis and steering. 

• Finance depends on IT for the smallest change. Changing a statement, adding an account, adapting a workflow: that is a ticket, a meeting, a delay. 

• The budget and the forecast stay largely in Excel — fragile, not auditable, hard to change mid-year. 

These four pain points are not anecdotes: they are the four main reasons our clients decided to take the step.

5 misconceptions about EPM projects — and what reality says ​

• “ It is only for large companies ” → CPM Express targets mid-market groups precisely.
  The offering is sized for their scale and their budget — not for a CAC 40 company.

• “ An EPM project is long and heavy ” → Rollout in 8 to 12 weeks thanks to IFRS / French standards pre-configuration. 

• “ It is complicated and expensive to maintain ” → Configuration with no technical development. The Finance team adds accounts, statements and controls without depending on IT. Predictable cost from the outset.

• “ They will take Excel away from me ” → Every OneStream report can be consumed dynamically in Excel, Word and PowerPoint. Excel stays available, enriched.

• “ It is an IT project ” → It is a Finance project. The finance teams drive the configuration and the administration from end to end.

What the major management consulting firm's project taught us

This major management consulting firm is one of the first clients we deployed this approach for. The result: statutory consolidation and management reporting in under 12 weeks, across a multi-entity scope.

Three factors were decisive:

1. The first is the preparation up front: the pre-engagement phase — mock-ups, calculation rules, accounting schemas — is the least visible stage and the most structuring one. The more care it gets, the faster everything after it goes.

2. The second factor is the availability of the client's Finance teams: the Finance teams drive the structuring decisions, particularly defining the workflows or validating the historical data carried over — this is not a project you hand over entirely to the integrator.

3. The third is methodological discipline: stay in the standard for as long as possible, and customize gradually.

An important point on timelines: OneStream officially states 6 to 8 weeks for CPM Express.

At KPC we talk about 8 to 12 weeks — a timeline that includes the pre-engagement phase and carrying over the historical data. It is a more cautious promise, but it is the one we can keep.

How a unified EPM platform rollout works

What changes concretely is that all the data — actuals, budget, forecast, statutory consolidation, management reporting — lives in the same application. No synchronization between modules, no risk of tools drifting apart, no interface to maintain. 

The analogy we often use: OneStream is the smartphone. The pre-configured offering is the installed app that has you up and running on day one. And the marketplace (Solution Exchange) is the App Store — you add what you need as your organization evolves: payroll, CAPEX, treasury, ESG, project planning, Pillar 2. 

The Finance teams get real independence back: building their own statements, running budget simulations with pre-configured methods, auditing every figure right down to the source data in one click — without calling on IT. 

The project phases

• Pre-engagement: Mock-ups, calculation rules, accounting schemas, defining the workflows. Client availability is essential — it is success factor number 1. (Duration: variable)

• Kick-off & Design: Detailed design, organizing the contributors, validating the target processes and signing off the design. (Duration: 2-3 weeks)

• Configuration: Configuration and unit testing. Switching features on — no heavy technical development. (Duration: 6 weeks)

• Configuration: Integration testing, training for users and Finance administrators. (Duration: 2 weeks)

• Go-live & Warranty: Go-live and KPC support after go-live. (Duration: 1-2 months)

How an EPM platform evolves after rollout

The CPM Express approach is not an end in itself. It is a way into an EPM platform designed to evolve with your organization over 10 to 15 years. Our clients start with financial consolidation and management reporting, then gradually extend the scope: payroll planning, cash flow management, CAPEX, ESG/CSRD reporting. 

What does not change : the same application, the same reference data, the same user logic. You never start again from scratch. 

To find out more about our EPM expertise, explore our Performance Management offering

Still running your consolidation and your FP&A in separate tools? Is your close still taking too long? Get in touch to see whether this approach fits your organization.

About KPC

KPC is a consulting and integration firm specialized in Data and EPM (Enterprise Performance Management).

With €70M in revenue, 500+ consultants and experts across 12 offices, 8 entities in France (Aix-en-Provence, Bordeaux, Lyon, Montpellier, Nantes, Paris, Sophia Antipolis, Toulouse) and 3 international locations including 2 offshore BUs (Philippines and Madagascar), KPC supports finance departments in modernizing their performance management, financial consolidation and reporting processes.

A certified OneStream integrator partner, KPC has more than 100 EPM clients in production, among them CMA CGM, Accor and the major management consulting firm.

Our approach combines Finance business expertise, technical command of the EPM solutions and lessons from the field, for projects that are pragmatic and results-oriented. 

About OneStream

OneStream is the unified cloud Corporate Performance Management platform, trusted by more than 1,700 clients worldwide.

Designed to unify financial and operational data in a single application, OneStream covers close and consolidation, FP&A, integrated planning and ESG reporting. The platform has artificial intelligence built in to speed up forecasting and automate low-value tasks. 

OneStream is recognized as a Gartner Peer Insights Customers' Choice 2024, a BARC Financial Performance Management Market Leader and The Hackett Group Digital World Class Integrated EPM 2024.