At a Glance
Hilton Worldwide’s legacy financial systems and technology stack couldn’t support their growth goals. SC&H partnered with Hilton’s finance team to lead a decade-long transformation–from fragmented, manual functions to a globally unified, data-driven powerhouse.
Key Results
5,000
Hotels integrated onto one Oracle platform
100%
Integrated planning and reporting worldwide
40%
Improvement in global EBITDA forecast accuracy
Client
Industry
hospitality
“Properties can now calculate and report in seconds, and an entire region can be consolidated in a matter of minutes. This advance in technology allows our finance users, as well as regional directors, to focus their time on the metrics that drive the business versus building budgets and forecasts.”
Anand Naimpally
Senior Vice President, Global Operations of Finance at Hilton Worldwide
Client Challenges
Legacy systems and manual spreadsheets limited Hilton’s scalability and slowed close, budgeting, and forecasting cycles
Fragmented data and inconsistent metrics caused inaccurate reporting across global operations
Weak governance and metadata controls blocked reliable ERP/EPM integration
Lack of drivers and slow forecasting cadence reduced property-level accuracy, hindering leaders’ ability to quickly respond to market shifts
SC&H Solutions
Implemented Oracle EPM Cloud (Financial Close, Planning, Budgeting) to modernize and scale corporate and property-level processes
Added headcount and allocation models to provide detailed expense and resource visibility
Established governance standards and integrated ERP/EPM to create scalable, reliable data structures
Enabled driver-based weekly forecasting to improve accuracy across 800 properties and accelerate market responsiveness
The Results: Reaching Their Growth Goals
5,000
hotels worldwide integrated on one Oracle PBCS platform
2,500+
EPM users (hotel managers) adopted across the globe
40%
improvement in global EBITDA forecast accuracy
20+
automated integrations built to drive efficiency
100%
integrated planning and reporting worldwide
SC&H Project Team Leads
THE STORY
Chartering a Disciplined Course for the Future
Amidst an acquisition and brand consolidation, Hilton Worldwide’s finance team realized their 20-year-old legacy financial systems needed a complete overhaul.
Manual processes, outdated technology, and siloed metrics were hindering their ability to forecast accurately. With their global operations growing fast, they desperately needed a partner to help them modernize.
SC&H Group was the right co-pilot to lead their modernization. Our Finance Transformation and Oracle EPM experts were excited to work with Hilton’s strong internal finance team to design and roll out each stage of this decade-long project.
Phase 1: Building a Strong Foundation
The journey began when we implemented Oracle’s Hyperion Financial Management and Hyperion Planning applications. This was an essential first step for Hilton’s finance team, who wanted a single source of truth for corporate close, consolidation, budgeting, and forecasting.
With a strong foundation in place, the next phase provided Hilton leaders with a granular view of expenses and resources. We added headcount models so they could forecast department-wide staffing needs, along with allocation models for simpler strategic distribution of shared expenses like IT and marketing.
Together, these models enabled Hilton to make data-backed decisions about resources and expenses.
Laying the Groundwork: Data Alignment and Governance
Before expanding further, our teams had to tackle a critical step: cleaning up the chart of accounts and strengthening data governance.
Together with Hilton, we established metadata standards and ensured seamless integration between ERP and EPM systems. This early step was critical. It solidified the reliability Hilton would need to scale.
“Hilton did an excellent job of bridging the gap between their ERP solution and the EPM solutions,” said Nick Scott, SC&H’s Managing Director of Advisory & Transformation. “They made sure the foundation was set before moving forward.”
With governance in place and ERP/EPM alignment achieved, Hilton was ready for the next phase.
Phase 2: Driver-Based Planning at the Property Level
In 2015, Hilton’s corporate planning layer was running smoothly, and our focus shifted to extending that same level of precision to the property level.
With so much variety in their brand, Hilton’s planning model needed to be agile enough to accommodate local nuances, while still providing standardized monthly visibility at the global level.
Our solution had to unify unique needs and revenue drivers between a variety of properties. For example, a roadside hotel along I-95 operates very differently from a luxury resort in Hawaii, where the golf course and restaurant might generate more income than the entire I-95 budget property.
Through global workshops, deep dives into more than 1,000 P&L accounts, and continuous collaboration with Hilton, we co-created a driver-based planning model. We used business drivers like guest count, occupancy, and seasonal patterns to standardize their cloud-based Oracle PBCS system–then deployed it across 800 owned properties worldwide.
This shift successfully replaced outdated legacy systems with a future-proof model that worked seamlessly across Hilton’s global portfolio.
Getting More Granular With Weekly Planning
Taking it one step further, in 2017, we advanced Hilton’s monthly forecasting to be weekly, allowing managers to quickly respond to shifts in demand and sharpen daily operational planning. Property managers could now adjust their staffing during peak seasons to avoid overspending and understaffing.
“The deployment of Oracle PBCS ensured consistency across our entire user population and application availability during local business hours,” said Anand Naimpally, Senior Vice President, Global Operations Finance at Hilton Worldwide. “PBCS allows us to change key performance indicators, such as occupancy or customers, which flow through the entire P&L without additional user interaction.”
Home Stretch: Cloud Migration and Continuous Improvement
As cloud technologies matured in 2022, we migrated Hilton’s corporate applications into the next generation of Oracle ERP and EPM Cloud. Modernizing the backbone of corporate finance ensured they were set up for flexibility, scalability, and a long-term roadmap for innovation.
Throughout the transformation, Hilton’s early investment in governance and metadata standards was essential. These disciplines allowed new processes, properties, and technologies to be integrated smoothly, without disrupting business operations.
“Properties can now calculate and report in seconds, and an entire region can be consolidated in a matter of minutes,” said Anand. “This technology allows our finance team to focus their time on the metrics that drive the business.”
