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Case Studies
The following is a selected set of case studies related to Hitachi customers and partners.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Benchmarking and Analysis of Global Financial Data
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is one of the world's largest accounting and business services firms. It provides industry-focused services to both public and private clients in the areas of audit and assurance, crisis management, human resources, performance improvement, tax, and transactions (such as financial due diligence, project finance, and accounting valuations).
PwC wanted to develop a platform that served the needs of its audit and advisory groups for risk management analysis and reporting that was based on the existing third-party financial data source it had purchased. PwC analysts were spending an enormous amount of time on the unproductive tasks of data retrieval and error correction. Although analysts had an existing inventory of analytic models developed in Microsoft Excel, they had to copy and paste data from the data source to use them. PwC wanted to slash the time spent on such routine busy work so that analysts could focus on the comparative analyses, benchmarking reports, and custom analyses essential to its business.
The Hitachi XBRL Solution: Hitachi XBRL Reporter
To solve the problem, Hitachi implemented an open platform based on XBRL and Web Services that interoperates with the customer’s existing system infrastructure. Specifically, Hitachi provided:
- Taxonomy design and development using its XiRUTE Taxonomy Editor (TE) and Instance Creator (IC);
- An automated XBRL conversion engine on its Hitachi Business Reporting Processor (HBRP);
- A customized version of its Xinba tool -- which allows users to import, validate, and analyze XBRL documents easily, accurately, and correctly -- as well as Xinba templates for data analysis;
- Training to teach staff how to use the system and how to maintain templates and taxonomies
Results
The achievements of the project have been substantial:
- The new system, completed in July 2006, has dramatically reduced the time required to prepare financial data for analysis -- from one day to less than one minute to compile data for five companies spanning 10 years.
- XBRL instance documents can now be created in real time by invoking the conversion and validation engine via the use of Web Services. The financial data of some 43,000 U.S. and non-U.S. public companies are now available in XBRL 2.1-compliant format on an annual and quarterly basis, and are offered for risk management analysis and reporting on a real-time basis.
- The system offers complete data inter-operability with other XBRL data sources, and the flexibility to create new templates via the customization of Xinba by users.
Merrill Corp. Automate Filing for SEC VFP
Merrill Corp. is a leading provider of outsourcing solutions for business communication and information management requirements. Their services include document and data management, litigation support, branded communication programs, fulfillment, imaging, and printing.
Merrill wanted to provide a service that, in its initial phase, would encourage both present and new clients to join the Securities and Exchange Commission's Voluntary Filing Program (SEC VFP) for XBRL. Subsequently, Merrill planned to have a system for automating filing processes in XBRL, enabling the company to offer more accurate and timely solutions to clients.
The Hitachi XBRL Solution: Hitachi XBRL Reporter
With its background and the experience it had gained in the SEC VFP program and the development of its own XBRL tools, Hitachi was expertly positioned to assist Merrill accomplish its objectives. Hitachi designed and consulted to create processes for the filing of data in XBRL, and provided tools and services to prepare the data. It set up a template using Xinba for easy and simple customer review, providing user training to review a final format of data with the Xinba tool.
The new program served its first customer in May 2006. This is how the process works:
- Decide which SEC filing is to be reported in XBRL
- Collect financial facts for SEC VFP from the original SEC filing
- Compare reported account items with US-GAAP items to specify extension, i.e., mapping (using Excel and financial knowledge)
- Create taxonomy extension (using XiRUTE TE)
- Validate taxonomy extensions against XBRL 2.1 specifications
- Create instance document (using XiRUTE IC)
- Validate instance document against XBRL 2.1 specifications
- Review by client (using Xinba)
- Adjust the documents accordingly
- Submit to SEC (performed by Merrill)
Results
Hitachi helped Merrill achieve these important objectives:
- Successfully launch a new service with minimum investment
- Understand the whole process of SEC VFP data preparation
- Train staff to work for this service with Hitachi
WACOAL Corporate Accounting Reengineering
Wacoal is a leading Japanese maker of women's apparel. As the company grew, its information technology systems were added on an as-needed basis. The result was a patchwork of 32 independent legacy systems running on multiple platforms, including mainframes, minicomputers, UNIX, and PC servers. Many of these legacy systems were more than 10 years old and used in over 36 subsidiaries throughout the world. Thirty-two business application systems (e.g. purchasing, sales, payrolls, etc.) provided data to 44 disparate accounting subsystems, also running on multiple platforms.
Wacoal was challenged to create a flexible IT system within a fixed time-frame and resource constraints. It needed real-time cash management, accounting information for internal planning and control, reduced indirect costs, and integrated accounting systems that conformed to worldwide standards.
The Hitachi XBRL Solution: Hitachi XBRL Controller
Wacoal adopted XBRL-GL as a common data format and used Hitachi’s XiRUTE Journalizing Engine to automate the processing of data (e.g. journalizing, tax calculation, validation) from the business application systems to the accounting subsystems and consolidated all into one system. To deliver this project successfully, Hitachi performed business analyses, technical consultation, project management, software development, and system integration.
Hitachi did the following:
- Consolidated the existing 44 accounting subsystems running on multiple platforms onto Oracle E-Business Suite;
- Selected XBRL-GL as the standardized interface to facilitate data exchange among the various business application systems and the corporate accounting system running on Oracle E-Business Suite;
- Fully automated the journalizing process with Hitachi XBRL products and tools, resulting in direct data flow from the business application systems into the corporate accounting system.
Results
The new accounting system was launched in April 2003 as the first commercial XBRL-GL implementation in the world. The project enabled consolidated financial reporting of 36 subsidiaries by integrating 32 independent legacy systems to a new accounting system using XBRL-GL as a backbone data format for Wacoal.
The new accounting system:
- Shortened the closing of accounts by two days;
- Improved data quality by eliminating manual re-keying; and
- Improved quality of managerial reporting by real-time cash management.
The XBRL-GL system provides Wacoal with the ability to plan for additional system enhancements such as an ERP system. A future upgrade to the purchasing system can be quickly implemented, because the system’s output, coded in XBRL-GL, will automatically be compatible with the present system.
Hitachi High Technologies Financial Information Wholesaler Project
Hitachi High Technologies (HHT) is the only information wholesaler in Japan certified by the Financial Services Agency (or FSA, often called Japan's SEC). HHT receives financial reports – including both audited annual statements and non-audited quarterly earning releases – from the FSA and major Japan stock exchanges, then resells this information to data aggregators, who prepare and format it for easier manipulation and analysis by end-users.
HHT wanted to modernize its operations and enhance its competitiveness to increase revenues, lower costs, and improve the services it offers. Before the project began, HHT could only offer data in PDF and CSV formats; its goal was to provide data in any customer-specified formats.
The Hitachi XBRL Solution: Hitachi XBRL Reporter
The key to this improvement was adoption of XBRL as the common data standard format for its business operations. To prepare and execute this project, Hitachi performed business analyses, technical consultation, project management, software development, and system integration.
With about 4,500 reporting companies and 50,000 account titles that needed to be represented, Hitachi created nine taxonomy sets extended from Japan GAAP to express industry-specific statement structures and account titles.
- The 50,000 original account names were mapped to 4,000 standardized titles. Utilizing the unique capabilities of XBRL linkbases, the original account names of any reporting company could be retrieved from the standardized titles using the footnote linkbase. In addition, English equivalents of the standardized titles were retrievable via the label linkbase.
- The 4,500 reporting companies were tagged with the newly-developed taxonomies. The mapping / tagging rules are created, stored, and referenced by the conversion engine built on top of the Hitachi Business Reporting Processor and XiRUTE Library every time a company is processed. The conversion engine references both mapping rules and a specific taxonomy for conversion.
Unlike the US, the companies give the FSA financial information in PDF format -- and there are different PDF types! Hitachi’s goal was to provide as much automation in the mapping and conversion process. Due to the nature of the PDF files, certain types (e.g. the image type or encrypted files) require human intervention in an otherwise automated process. However, by using Hitachi Business Reporting Processor (HBRP) and XiRUTE Library in development, the cost was half that of building the system from scratch.
Results
The new XBRL-based system was launched in October 2003. It processes the financial statements of all listed companies, OTC-traded companies, and those unlisted companies that are required to file to the FSA. The statements include those for income, financial position, cash flow, production costs, appropriations, consolidated surplus, and capital accounts, as well as the accompanying notes.
- Data preparation time fell from 2 weeks to less than 24 hours. Companies' financial data is now available in XBRL the day after release.
- Revenues rose, since customers were happy to pay a premium for same-day data availability.
- Operational expense declined, because full-time teams of clerks to type data and high-cost professionals to map data to a standardized format were no longer needed.
- Data error was reduced, because of the system's validation features and automatic data entry.
