Customer Use Case
Four businesses with almost nothing in common. One planning platform.
Day & Zimmermann builds munitions, runs government services, does maintenance and construction, and staffs. Each one planned its own way on Excel and BPC. All four now plan the full three statements on one SAP EPM planning platform.
- Headquartered
- Philadelphia, PA
- Industry
- Defense, engineering and staffing
- Employees
- 32,000
- Revenue
- $2.9 billion
- Ownership
- Family‑owned since 1901
- First live forecast
- 2026
The problem
Four operating models, four ways of planning
Day & Zimmermann is four businesses that have very little in common. Munitions. Government services. Maintenance and construction. And Yoh, a staffing company. Their own words for it: the diversity made one planning model a significant design challenge.
Each planned separately, and mostly in Excel on top of BPC. Planning was primarily a P&L exercise. There was no workforce planning and no CapEx model. So finance could not see a balance sheet or a cash flow that came out of the plan itself.
This was not a lift and shift of the old tool onto a new one. It was a decision about what finance would standardize and what it would leave alone.
The design principle
Standardize the backbone, keep the business logic
“Standardize the backbone. Keep the business logic where operationally necessary.”
Day & ZimmermannThe guiding principle behind the design.
That is the hard part, and it is the part a finance leader recognizes instantly. Four businesses this different got one model without being forced into one process.
- PlanningA shared backbone plus four business unit revenue and margin models
- ConsolidationAll four feeding one consolidated finance model
- WorkforceEmployee‑level labor planning for G&A and overhead, with workforce actuals
- CapitalA shared CapEx model with assets, depreciation and three‑statement impact
Lessons learned
System readiness is not operational readiness
That line is from their own closing slide, and it is not the kind of thing a vendor writes for a customer. It is why the program stopped after the first live forecast instead of rolling straight into the next phase.
“The platform enables change, but the people, process and governance make it stick.”
Day & ZimmermannFrom their closing slide.
Watch the story
Day & Zimmermann, in their own words
Corporate planning walks through what the four businesses had before, what they built, and what they would tell another finance team to get right first.
Trouble with the player? Open the recording on YouTube.
Customer Testimonials
From Excel to SAP Analytics Cloud for monthly financial consolidations, reporting and data management.
I am very pleased with how the project went overall … our first consolidation has gone very smoothly. SimpleFi's accounting background and expertise were the perfect fit to help us implement significant process improvements and we are already seeing benefits from the automation of intercompany elimination processes.
Planning and coordination time down 25 to 35 percent, with production and financial planning in one repository.
Retail operations across 14 states, running integrated business, workforce and liquidity planning.
Partnering with SimpleFi has been a success; thank you for making accounting magical again.
A solid understanding of our current state... Combined with an outstanding consulting firm [SimpleFi] was the secret to our success.
[SimpleFi] delivered consolidations on time and under budget.
S&C can now meet all legal entity and business unit consolidation and planning requirements.
Our team could not be more satisfied with your service...we look forward to working your team to deliver our next phase of BPC Mgmt reporting and all future phases of BPC.
I am very pleased with the results of the SAP Analytics Cloud project. It's nice to be able to dynamically view real time key business transformation in an easy to read format. The consultants from SimpleFi did an outstanding job on this project. Thanks to all!
