OSTC plans global consolidation with Sage X3 from Datel
OSTC plans global consolidation with Sage X3 from Datel
23rd August 2016
OSTC Ltd, the leading liquidity provider to global derivatives exchanges, is to implement a Sage X3 system from Sage Platinum Business Partner Datel.
OSTC, OSTC FX and its educational arm provide a growing number of essential services to the capital markets industry and Sage X3 will support both future expansion and the consolidation of existing entities.
OSTC is a long-time user of Sage, and the new system will replace Sage 200. From the company’s UK head office in Bromley, Kent, Chief Financial Officer, Iwona Jordan explains why OSTC has decided to migrate to a more powerful Sage solution: “Our business operates across multiple jurisdictions and reporting frameworks and in multiple currencies. Sage 200 has served the business well, but increasingly the international nature of or business was beyond its scope. We need a system that handles foreign exchange with ease and can bring all our financial operations across the world ‘under one roof’ with a single, consolidated system.”
Chief Operating Officer Ian Firla comments, “We’re a geographically diverse group, with multiple revenue sources from different lines that collectively handle 120 million contracts every year; that’s an enormous amount of data needing to be processed. We have grown steadily in recent years and looked for a system that could offer powerful support for our business, as we further strengthen our global presence and expand into new territories.”
Sage X3 emerged as the front-runner in offering everything the company required for accounting and business consolidation, but not before OSTC had reviewed the market and carefully considered its options.
Iwona says, “While the structure of our business may be complex, how the individual parts operate is quite straightforward and we’re not looking for technological complexity. One thing that really impressed us about Sage X3 is its relative simplicity – it’s a streamlined solution. A single box offers us everything we need for the foreseeable future. In contrast, other solutions on the market, such as Hyperion from Oracle, seemed overly complex, so we decided not to proceed down that route.”
Looking ahead to some of the potential efficiencies to be gained by implementing Sage X3, she continues, “We will be able to eliminate many of the manual interventions currently involved in producing the accounts. In fact, I estimate that we will save one day a month on manual adjustments and two days – at least – in total when you factor in the time that will be saved on consolidation.”
With the company’s previous Sage Business Partner unable to support Sage X3, OSTC looked for an alternative provider and chose Datel. Ian says, “We’re a niche business and Datel were prepared to sit down and listen carefully to our particular business needs – something we haven’t experienced with other potential providers. Sage and Datel worked closely together, demonstrating jointly what Sage X3 could do for our business and this strong partnership between Sage and Datel was another factor in our decision to move over to Datel as our technology partner.”
He sums up, “We are confident that in Sage X3 we will have a system that will take our international growth in its stride, along with managing plural revenue sources, in diverse currencies, across multiple locations.”
For Datel, Sales Director Andrew Pritchard says, “We are pleased to have been selected to support OSTC’s growth strategy with a powerful, scalable system. Sage X3 will stand the business in good stead for many years to come. We have already held the kick-off meeting to define the precise requirements for the new software and the project milestones.”
The first phase of the project – migrating the UK business over to Sage X3 – is now going quickly forwards. Other OSTC locations will then be brought into the new system in the months that follow.
“Sage 200 has served the business well, but increasingly the international nature of or business was beyond its scope. We need a system that handles foreign exchange with ease and can bring all our financial operations across the world ‘under one roof’ with a single, consolidated system.”