Halma is a global group of life-saving technology companies, developing products for hazard detection, life protection and environmental monitoring. A member of the FTSE 100, Halma operates across more than 20 countries with around 40 businesses worldwide.

IBM Business Analytics Solution – IBM Controller & IBM Cognos Analytics

Services – Consultancy, Implementation & Ongoing Support

The Challenge

Halma was consolidating group accounts primarily in spreadsheets. This caused all kinds of problems getting to one version of the truth and managing version control.
This created several challenges:

Difficulty maintaining a single version of the truth
Complex version control
High risk of formula errors
Limited ability to produce meaningful management reporting

Halma initially moved to Hyperion, which improved structure but lacked robust reporting capability. The finance team wanted a solution that could support:

Group consolidation
Interactive business intelligence
Scalable management reporting
A centralised, secure data repository

IBM demonstrated the potential of an integrated Financial Performance Management solution, and Halma chose to move to IBM technology.

The Solution

Halma implemented IBM Controller to manage group consolidation and IBM Cognos Analytics to build interactive reporting and BI.

IBM recommended Aramar to support the implementation due to our experience integrating Controller and Cognos Analytics into a unified solution.

Aramar quickly identified data and structural improvements and helped Halma configure a more efficient, scalable model.

The Results

A single version of the truth

IBM Controller now underpins Halma’s year-end and half-year processes, giving the group a clear audit trail and a consistent, centralised consolidation environment.

“IBM Controller has given us discipline and one version of the truth.”

Controller also enables Halma to:

Lock down periods
Track changes
Produce timestamped reports for auditors
Run a reliable rolling 12-month forecast
Model currency and organic growth scenarios

This level of discipline simply wasn’t possible with spreadsheets.

Effortless structure changes

Halma can now apply structural changes quickly, moving companies between sectors, adapting to acquisitions, or adjusting hierarchy levels – all while following standard consolidation rules.

This flexibility has become “very, very valuable.”

Future-proofed management and board reporting

Cognos Analytics now underpins Halma’s management reporting.

“We can run a report to show all companies within a sector, always referencing the latest group structure.”

“If we still relied on Excel, we’d have to update every spreadsheet manually. Errors occur and there’s no audit trail. Cognos removes all of that risk.”

Halma now uses Cognos Analytics more every year, with automated bursting, weekly reporting, dashboards and KPIs.

Supporting group-wide reporting beyond Finance

Because non-financial data is stored in Cognos as well, Halma now reports on:

Health & Safety metrics
Environmental regulation compliance
BEPS (‘Google Tax’) reporting
Operational KPIs
Carbon emissions by company

Cognos Analytics automatically processes raw inputs into complete reports, eliminating spreadsheet risk and removing reliance on non-finance staff for manual data work.

Essential to the annual report

Over 90% of the schedules supporting Halma’s annual report now come directly from Cognos.
With more than 3,000 data points feeding the process, executives receive detailed insights earlier.

“This has helped our executives make consistently good decisions through tough economic times.”

Working with Aramar

Halma engages Aramar for upgrades, mentoring and best-practice guidance.

Aramar supports Halma with:

Tailored system improvements
Quick fixes and troubleshooting
Best practice examples for Cognos Analytics
Design support for new reports and dashboards

This flexible model allows Halma to grow and maintain the system internally, while still benefitting from specialist guidance when needed.

“Aramar understand that we want as simple and effective a solution as possible and work with complete transparency.”