Powerhouse Museum modernises finance planning solution

Located in Sydney is the Powerhouse, which sits at the intersection of the arts, design, science and technology, and plays a critical role in engaging communities with contemporary ideas and issues. Powerhouse is Australia’s largest museum group and is the custodian to more than half a million objects of national and international significance; it is considered one of the finest and most diverse collections in Australia.

Powerhouse was in the final stages of implementing the NSW Government Process and Technology Harmonisation (PaTH) ERP program and was concurrently seeking to further elevate the finance function with a state-of-the-art, contemporary financial-planning solution. The desired platform would enable effective strategic, project, workforce and business operational planning, performance management, analysis and insight generation as the organisation was undergoing transformative change through its renewal program — including the new purpose-built Powerhouse Parramatta and the revitalisation of Powerhouse Ultimo.

The challenge

Powerhouse is undergoing a renewal program with Powerhouse Parramatta, one of the most significant new museum projects in the world, which will be the first major cultural institution in Western Sydney. In addition, Powerhouse Ultimo is undergoing a revitalisation to deliver expanded museum exhibition and learning spaces within a new dynamic creative industries precinct for Sydney.

During this period of significant and rapid transformation, Powerhouse has been one of many NSW Government entities to migrate to MyWorkZone — a unified SAP S/4 HANA solution, delivered by the NSW Government ‘PaTH’ program.

Recently, Greg Johnson was appointed as Director, Finance with a focus on modernising the finance function ahead of these milestones, which would be addressed through a system and capability uplift to effectively manage these programs of work. However, uplifting the maturity of the Finance function needed to be promptly actioned within tight timeframes and budget constraints.

“We needed to assess, select, design and implement a finance and planning solution within six months to meet our program commitments,” Johnson said. “Furthermore, we had to quickly and easily develop budgets and improve our forecasting capability to ensure our program finances are being planned and managed effectively.

“In addition, it was critical to de-risk the impact of the PaTH implementation by ensuring we were able to bring data from our legacy ERP system together with data from our new ERP (MyWorkZone), so insights could be quickly developed to inform decision-making and [ensure] targeted timelines remain on-track.”

Powerhouse sought expertise from an experienced systems integrator to support the development of a high-level system design and implementation, in addition to understanding the nuances of NSW Government finance-reporting requirements, including reporting to NSW Treasury via its PRIME solution. Powerhouse therefore put to market an accelerated competitive process to seek a partner to assist. Decision Inc. Australia was selected for the project as the company demonstrated extensive experience meeting tight deadlines and implementing similar programs to assist government departments while undergoing a PaTH program.

“The challenging timeframes and conditions were understood from the first engagement with them, and we went through the process, along with our FP&A platform partner Workday, fully aware of the critical nature of the project,” said Tony Butler, Managing Director for Decision Inc. Australia. “But once we were selected, we were able to hit the ground running.”

The solution

Decision Inc. proposed the Workday Adaptive Planning Finance & Planning solution using its pre-built components such as the workforce planning model and SAP integrations with MyWorkZone.

“The solution would underpin the implementation of a modern finance function operating model, focused on the successful opening and operations of the new Powerhouse Parramatta Museum,” Butler said.

The solution and project plan were designed to meet key milestones that allowed the solution to scale and grow as Powerhouse continues to transform. As a team, the project initially delivered a minimum viable product prior to PaTH/MyWorkZone go-live, meeting all functional requirements. At this point the solution was ready on PaTH Go Live to ingest, consolidate and manage the FY25 budget for Powerhouse.

“Post implementation, we ran several sprints collecting future requirements aligned to the new museum launch and future operating model, with multiple identified enhancements implemented in two subsequent releases creating a solution that was scalable and fit for purpose for the future,” Butler said.

The outcome

The Workday Adaptive Planning solution has automated core FP&A functions for Powerhouse, such as budget preparation, month-end reporting, forecasting and what-if scenario analysis, to create efficiencies that allow the business to focus on both operational and strategic initiatives.

In addition, the organisation can now quickly analyse financial performance data. Budget owners can easily review their P&L and drill down into transactions to analyse what is behind performance, or if there were any anomalies needing correction. Budget owners can also quickly gain insights via dashboards and reports on actual financial performance versus budget and forecast views.

“This has removed the complexity of manually consolidating over 40 cost centre budgets, plans and forecasts into a single platform,” Johnson said. “We now have a consistent budgeting and forecasting process across Powerhouse and have moved away from a multitude of different, offline spreadsheets with different constructs, into a single, unified platform.”

The solution has significantly increased the speed of reporting across the Museum. Previously, to get management reports or reporting packs out to the business it typically took six weeks; these reports can now be completed and submitted within a few days of month-end close. Powerhouse was also impressed with the Office-Connect functionality that integrates with Microsoft products.

Powerhouse can now dynamically make changes to its workforce model with the ability to quickly run multiple scenarios and easily determine a cost and headcount impact, without having to manually calculate it.

“We can now quickly identify and visualise either project funding gaps or excess so we can quickly pivot and ensure optimal use of those funds, ensuring alignment to budget funding and organisational priorities,” Johnson said.

“Importantly, we were able to integrate into the NSW Government MyWorkZone solution on time and on budget within a very short period, and avoid project overruns,” Butler said. “Powerhouse now has a solution that ensures it can meet its current requirements and scale further in the lead-up to the opening of the new museum in Parramatta.”

Image credit: iStock.com/alanlim97