The Situation

Petrom S.A. is a former state-owned conglomerate comprising over one hundred independent companies throughout Romania, covering the whole value chain of oil and gas exploration, production and selling. The Petrom finance system was split into 74 independent accounting departments, which were operating multiple instances of five ERP systems, with over two thousand accountants throughout the country. The consolidation functions used Romanian Accounting Standards in Petrom’s Headquarters in Bucharest, with a year-end closure often taking as long as eight months. Acquired by the OMV Group (the Austrian Mineral Oil Authority), which is listed on the Austrian and London Stock Exchange, Petrom sought to standardize and meet the specific requirements of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as well as improve the speed and accuracy of its accounting processes.

The Solution

During a post merger integration project led by Capgemini in early 2005, Petrom management decided to implement a centralized shared service center for finance and IT. Bucharest was chosen as a suitable location, and furthermore a corporatewide SAP solution was identified to achieve Group-wide consistency based on an existing process model. Capgemini Consulting was contracted to lead both these projects, which commenced in mid 2005. The financial shared service center consists of six operational streams and a strong support function. The functional streams include accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger and closing, fixed assets, cost accounting and planning and payroll. The support stream concentrates on invoice scanning, printing center for invoices and payroll slips, archiving, office administration and mail services.

The Result

In the first quarter of 2007, Petrom Solutions – the shared finance and IT service centre – was operational. The centre operates with over 800 accountants and 300 IT resources, serving all 74 operational units of Petrom, including Marketing, Refining and Exploration and Production sites, covering all of Romania. The centre is the largest of its kind in South Eastern Europe.