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The users fall into two groups. The first is those looking for a consolidation solution to replace HFM, the Oracle product. HFM is aging out, and OneStream is a great fit as a replacement.
The other group wants a single product solution for everything – forecasting, planning, consolidation, and reporting. They don't want to switch between multiple products, and they can do it all in OneStream. That 'one version of the truth' concept is what they're looking for.
Think about how consolidations work – you're doing one month or quarter at a time. But with projections, you could be going out one, two, or three years. So you're processing multiple months at a time.
Earlier versions excelled at one month or one quarter, but they were a little clunky when doing 36 months out. OneStream has since fixed that; it's much better and more efficient now. My experience was going from something a bit chunky to something quite good in the current version.
Moreover, the analytics capabilities in OneStream XF are quite beneficial.
The BI-type capability is what OneStream calls 'blended analytics.' It's more about ad-hoc queries and insights rather than standard monthly reports. It asks, "What's happening in my business? Am I selling more red widgets or blue widgets?"
This is a solid innovation. OneStream can hook into transactional data, not just balance-oriented data. It's like your bank statement: the final balance is like a traditional report, but blended analytics lets you see every transaction – where money comes in and goes out. It's powerful, and they're ahead of the market with this. It fits their mentality of a single-user interface. No need to train people on a separate BI product – you can do it all within OneStream.
I can put it into two buckets again.
One is this: with multiple products, you have multiple versions of your data needing reconciliation, multiple products to train users on, and different processes... it can take several months. Having one system that does it all, looking back at the past and forward to the future, is a big advantage.
The other bucket is ease of use. This impacts not only the end-user experience but also the administrator's, which affects the total cost of ownership. An easier-to-administer product means less employee turnover due to frustration, and you can often hire less expensive resources. You don't need a PhD to run it, lowering organizational costs and improving administrator happiness.
There's always stuff on the drawing board, and there's an arms race going on in the AI space. It's too soon to pick a winner between OneStream and Oracle. OneStream's smaller, so maybe they're more nimble, but Oracle has more resources. AI is where I see the most innovation and progress, but it's not fully developed yet.
The other thing is that there are probably little things in the UI and overall processes that could be made easier to use. But there's nothing so consequential that it ruins your experience. It's more about tweaking and streamlining certain processes within the system.
I have been using it since they were founded, probably going back to around 2012.
When it comes to scalability, this is where a good implementation matters. If you have a knowledgeable project team, they can set it up to scale well.
But organizations change. For example, I built something three years ago, it works fine, and then suddenly you merge with your biggest competitor. Doubling your size adds complexity. You are twice the size you used to be, and there is added complexity.
You can run into problems with the existing setup, but that's true of Oracle products or any software. It's really because of the event, not the software itself.
I'd give them 110% if I could. They're so focused on customer service and success. It's a huge factor for them. No one else in the market can touch them.
Unlike some companies where you get an automated chatbot, these guys are committed to having a real person on the phone. Not someone in a call center reading a script, but someone who can answer your question and solve your problem. I don't think anyone else does that.
Positive
It's not a do-it-yourself job. All products in this space require assistance. That's why both Oracle and OneStream have partner firms for initial implementation.
The overall goal in the marketplace is to shorten implementation time and get it to a maintenance mode where the customer can run it independently. That's been the trend for years – simplifying implementation.
However, none of the products are at the 'fill out a form, click next' level of setup yet. You still need someone who knows what they're doing.
We were implementers. We were a consulting firm and implemented OneStream.
The size of the deployment team depends on the customer and the size of the project. You could have a small company with a one or two-person team – a senior resource as the architect and a junior resource handling the logistics.
But then you have huge companies with large project teams of 16 or 20 people.
It depends on two main factors:
Usually, just one person is enough for the maintenance. The products have gotten to the point where they're pretty easy to maintain. Often, it's not even a full FTE. One person can handle the administration alongside other responsibilities.
The product has a license by the user. They're on par with other competitors. One thing to consider is their relationship with Microsoft. They often push customers towards Azure, and Azure can get pricey as your footprint grows.
So, pound for pound, OneStream might be a little cheaper in some ways. But, with large implementations, the Microsoft cloud costs can become significant. Of course, you could move it to Google, AWS, or even bring it in-house, but cloud costs add up over time.
I would recommend it. It's not the right fit for smaller, less complex companies. But once you reach a certain size and complexity, it's the product I'd tell people to go to. Obviously, it's not the cheapest, but once your complexity increases, you need a more sophisticated product.
Overall, I would rate this product a ten out of ten. I think very highly of the company, the people, and the product itself.
They don't allow reselling. Unlike Oracle or SAP, they do direct sales. It's a bit old school, but it ties into their focus on customer service. They want a direct relationship with the customer.
Primarily, it's SAP automation. We use it to automate all our finance processes, including procure-to-pay (P2P) and order-to-cash (O2C). It integrates seamlessly with SAP, making it very efficient.
Redwood streamlined our financial closing process in two ways. Firstly, we've reduced the number of personnel needed. A single bot now replaces five associates who previously handled finance processes. This freed up those associates to focus on expanding into new markets.
Secondly, it eliminates manual errors. The bot is programmed to handle everything, so there are no mistakes or missed entries.
The processing speed has also significantly improved. It used to take much longer for each transaction, but now, we can execute continuous transactions ten times faster.
Earlier, every transaction used to take up more time. Now it's much less. In one-tenth of the time, we can execute the continuous transactions. Whether we consolidate it or compare the transcations, those kinds of things, they are much faster and better.
Redwood has positively impacted our daily financial operations and reporting tasks. As an example, invoice automation is much easier. Previously, posting a smaller number of invoices involved manual geo-posting and data transfer. Now, I can process 3,000 to 5,000 invoices daily.'
Another improvement is in terms of compliance or audit trails since implementing Redwood.
Redwood has a great feature where it logs every transaction. So, at any point, we can see every step taken for each transaction. It creates an audit trail of the entire process execution. It is a really good feature. This eliminates the need for extra coding or report generation. The audit report is readily available within the tool itself.
The seamless integration with SAP is crucial, as it's our primary system.
Reporting is also good. That's one of the product's strengths.
The remediation features are excellent. If an error occurs during posting, it generates an error log. We collect these logs, restart the bot, and process the remediation. So, Redwood's error handling and exception management features helped our automation.
Everything seems to be working well. However, I see value in integrating AI for automation.
So, I would like to see AI integration for automation in future releases.
Ideally, after I perform postings, I would like to leverage a generative AI model. This would allow me to type a query or question directly to the bot, and it would retrieve the information I need.
For example, I could ask for the number of invoices, the status of specific invoices, or any other relevant data.
Currently, we achieve this by building our own Finance model. So, integrating a pre-built finance model with the tool would be much easier and more efficient for reporting purposes.
We're looking at several potential uses for this AI model. It could empower various user groups, including regular finance executives, customers, and even vendors to submit queries. Additionally, our leadership team is interested in using the AI model to generate reports directly on the Redwood dashboard.
This functionality could potentially replace the need for BSpoke Solutions and the manual generation of BSpoke reports, streamlining the entire reporting process.
I have been using this solution since 2016.
I'd rate its stability an eight out of ten.
I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. It scales very well.
Currently, it's only loaded up for Finance. We've been using it primarily for finance across our Vodafone assets in forty different countries, including Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and to some extent, America.
We do not have Vodafone stores in very many locations, so we have partnered with other vendors in some areas. However, as a telecom operator, our primary operations are not in trading but are focused on Europe, Middle East, and Asia.
For HR, we're still analyzing and identifying processes that can be taken up first with Redwood. We're aiming to start with some pilot HR cases in the second quarter of 2024.
The customer service and support are pretty good. They're a small company, but their support is fast and effective.
They're very fast to respond, fix issues quickly, and even provide permanent fixes. Their service level agreements (SLAs) are much better.
They have a tiered system based on transaction volume. For example, if your transactions fall under the 10% tier, they respond within a minute and ensure your process is running again within five minutes without loss of any data, guaranteeing 99.99% uptime.
We haven't needed tier three support yet, which offers 99.95% or 99.0% uptime with resolution within 15-20 minutes, but it's good to know it's there. Overall, their SLAs, response times, and recovery times are pretty good.
While they're good, there's always room for improvement.
Positive
We used Blue Prism and UiPath. Tools like Blue Prism and UiPath are generic and not specific to any industry or technology.
They're not well-suited for specific industries. Whether it's healthcare, pharmaceutical, or aviation, I doubt you can effectively use those tools. They might be better for generic industries like service industries, such as travel, retail, or even e-commerce. I could potentially build bots for handling orders using the UiPath or Blue Prism, and they might be faster. However, it ultimately depends on the applications I use and the number of processes involved, including main and sub-processes. Those generic tools might be better suited for such scenarios.
However, for industries with specific and streamlined processes and applications, like finance, Redwood comes into play. It offers specific applications tailored to industries like pharmaceuticals, telecom, or finance. These pre-built applications align with the streamlined processes and applications used for years in these specific fields, making the tool ideal for such situations.
The deployment process wasn't easy. It requires someone with a good understanding of product installation, configuration, and integration.
So, I'd rate my experience with the initial setup around six out of ten with ten being easy to set because it requires a good skill set.
Initially, we faced some issues because we were using traditional tools like Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, and UiPath, which are not technology-agnostic.
Redwood is very specific to SAP. So, we had to consult with Redwood itself in the Netherlands. They sent a technical team member to train our team for two weeks. He trained us on installation, configuration, documentation, and support. This was excellent support provided with the product purchase.
The support is still managed by Redwood itself. The support works based on a per-transaction model. They charge based on the number of transactions processed in production.
One metric is the time taken to execute tasks and the number of transactions processed per minute. Previously, processing 1,000 financial records took 12 minutes. Now, it's significantly faster, with the number of transactions processed per minute increasing two to three times, even up to 300 times faster.
Secondly, cost savings. For example, one bot replaced five associates. That's significant resource optimization. The bot's efficiency has improved utilization overall.
The pricing is very client-specific. It's not a one-size-fits-all price. They don't have a single price for everyone. It's based on the client and the number of transactions. As Vodafone, a large company with many transactions, we get a discounted rate.
Initially, it was challenging because few of our processes were ready for automation. But as we stabilized, documented, and automated processes, the value increased significantly. We've reached a break-even point after two years, and it's much better now in terms of value for money.
Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.
