• Bill Koefoed, CFO at OneStream Software


• 31.03.2022 02:39 pm

1. Can you tell us why you think OneStream has been successful?

There are a couple of things that have made OneStream successful.  First is the “big idea” the company was founded on, which is the challenge many organizations face trying to drive a continuous corporate performance management process using spreadsheets or multiple legacy applications.  OneStream supports a broad range of critical financial and operational management processes such as planning, forecasting, financial consolidation, reporting and analytics - in a single, unified platform that can replace multiple legacy applications or spreadsheets. This approach helps organizations reduce their total cost of ownership, increase efficiency in these processes, improve effectiveness in decision-making and reduce risk. 

The second key factor is our mission that every customer must be a success and a reference.  That mission drives everything OneStream does and has led to high customer satisfaction and retention rates, and rapid growth. 

2. Have you had any interesting announcements or developments recently?

Yes! First off, we’re very proud to announce that 2022 marks the 10-year anniversary of the company. This comes on the heels of a very successful 2021 in which we achieved over $200 million in Annual Recurring Revenue, representing 75% year-over-year growth as of December 31. Our customer base also grew by 38% to over 900, and we onboarded over 300 new employees, helping us cross over the 1000 employee milestone.  In addition, we announced that in 2022 we’ll open a new headquarters facility in Birmingham, Michigan, along with our further expansion in the APAC region with a new office in Singapore announced in December. 

3. What have been the key drivers of the development and growth of OneStream over the last few years?

As I mentioned earlier, delivering 100% customer success is a core value at OneStream, and this hallmark is a major driver of our immense success. It was always important to us that we build a company, and product, that other companies want to recommend. If you can get one customer to pay for a product or service and be happy with it, then you have a good chance of repeating that. It’s part of our mission that every customer will be a reference, one success at a time. And, over the years, we’ve seen our customers’ success reflected in our own.   

Another key driver of growth has been the digital transformation of Finance processes and the increased adoption of cloud/SaaS applications by Finance departments.  The need for increased business agility in the face of the recent disruptions caused by the global pandemic, supply chain issues, inflation and other challenges has driven increased demand for our solutions. 

4. Can you please give us a specific example of how your solutions have really had a positive impact on a company?

Organizations that have adopted OneStream’s unified platform have realized significant value, in four main areas – reducing technical debt and TCO, increasing efficiency in areas such as the financial close and planning processes, improved decision-making, and reduced risk of making mistakes or being faced with compliance penalties.  

One example of this in action is McCain Foods.  

McCain Foods Limited is a Canadian multinational frozen food company and the world’s largest manufacturer of frozen French fries, potato products and appetizers, where one in every four frozen French fries world-wide are manufactured by the company. McCain Foods had been using SAP BPC for 10+ years for financial consolidation, financial and management reporting. 

After considering several alternatives, including upgrading to a newer version of SAP BPC, McCain selected OneStream Software as its solution for financial consolidation, financial and management reporting — as well as for lease accounting. With over 300 happy OneStream users, McCain reduced its monthly close process from six days to four days and now has a user-friendly and unified solution for financial reporting, management reporting and lease accounting. 

To help navigate the COVID-19 disruption, McCain started using OneStream Cloud to move beyond the month-end close and reporting process and instead load and analyze sales volume and working capital data on a daily basis. As a result, through graphical dashboards, the CFO and Finance team are now able to view 7-, 14-, 21- and 28-day trends vs. the prior year. This increased visibility means they can spot key trends, update forecasts and make better, faster decisions that can positively impact business results.

5. What can we hope to see from OneStream in the future, and what is the outlook for tech in the wider industry?

This year we’re very eager to more formally launch our new Artificial Intelligence (AI) services and Machine Learning (ML) capabilities that will allow finance and operations teams to easily incorporate advanced forecasting and other ML techniques into their existing planning processes. 

For the wider industry, I expect businesses will lean further into AI and ML integrations. The key to successful deployment of AI and ML is to integrate the technology into existing workflows, systems and processes that are already being used. As such, we’ll see an increased focus on AI/ML integration in the years ahead. Businesses will take a more critical eye to their existing business processes and bring in the technology where applicable. For example, integrating ML into planning and forecasting processes will allow a business to leverage internal as well as external data sources to create ML-driven forecasts. From there, businesses can leverage corporate performance management (CPM) and Business Intelligence (BI) tools to analyze the results of ML models to inform more effective decision-making. Over the next year, we’ll see organizations moving beyond the one-off use cases of ML in favor of embedding the technology into their current platforms for faster and improved insights.

6. What does the competitive landscape look like from your point of view?

It seems that modern businesses are eager to replace legacy CPM applications such as Oracle Hyperion, SAP, IBM and even point solutions such as Anaplan and Blackline. Business leaders want CPM partners that deliver innovative planning, reporting and analysis solutions designed to help customers succeed in today’s fast-paced and increasingly complex business environment. If a CPM partner can’t provide this, they can expect their customers to leave in favor of a partner that does. 

7. How would you summarize all this in one or two sentences?

As the “financial brain and operating system” for modern business, OneStream helps organizations harness the value of the data they are generating in multiple systems such as ERP, CRM, HCM, Supply Chain and other sources.  We help them turn this data into financially intelligent information – all in one user-friendly platform that streamlines processes, supports more effective decision-making, and increases business agility – something we all need these days!