In-Depth

Hyperion Nabs UpStream for BPM and Compliance

Hyperion bets that UpStream’s technology will give it a competitive edge in the still-gestating BPM marketplace

• By Stephen Swoyer
• 04/26/2006

Hyperion Solutions Corp. last week sought to enhance its business performance management (BPM) portfolio by acquiring privately-held UpStream Software, a provider of data readiness and guided workflow application software.

UpStream’s flagship WebLink DM offering is a product of (and tailor made for) the post-SOX age. Hyperion officials are betting that UpStream’s technology will help give them a competitive edge—particularly with companies that have grown as a result of intense merger-and-acquisition activity.

UpStream, a Hyperion preferred partner since 2002, developed WebLink DM to help companies track the movement of financial information from source to report. UpStream’s technology is of especial importance in today’s regulatory climate, Hyperion officials say: the company’s WebLink DM product helps finance managers gain greater visibility into the financial data management processes, and (hopefully) lower the cost of compliance.

UpStream’s customers include Honeywell, Sunbeam, and Unisys, among others.

Hyperion is expected to position WebLink DM—which UpStream’s product literature describes as an “out-of-the-box, pre-packaged data loading and staging tool”—as a complement to its existing financial management and BPM software stack. Users of Hyperion’s BPM software can tap WebLink to collect, store, and map the relationships between their general ledgers and financial consolidation systems. WebLink features canned integration with Hyperion Financial Management and with a number of commercial general ledger systems, officials say, so it helps speed up the processes of financial data collection and staging.

As a result, companies can improve their consolidation times, Hyperion representatives say. The UpStream technology will be particularly welcomed by companies with multiple geographically dispersed locations or heterogeneous general ledger systems, officials say. WebLink DM helps them mind the sourcing and integrity of their financial information, so they can quickly consolidate financial statements and more rapidly close their financial cycles.

WebLink is SOX-ready, too. It maintains a central repository for all source data and uses control questionnaires to assess, maintain, and monitor financial controls. It also provides a direct audit trail for all source documents, which UpStream officials say is consistent with the requirements of SOX Section 302. Finally, WebLink DM can also track and manage spreadsheets and other documents created and used during the financial consolidation process.

“Adding financial data quality management is a logical extension to the value Hyperion provides its customers. By offering UpStream technology as part of our BPM system, we roll out a proven solution,” said Godfrey Sullivan, president and CEO of Hyperion, in a statement.

Hyperion positions financial data quality management as a distinct subset of the overall data quality market.