Description

What happens when a legacy manufacturing company finally breaks free from spreadsheet chaos?

We sat down with Ryan Smith, Corporate Accounting Manager at Anderson Corporation, to explore their ongoing transformation from outdated consolidation tools to OneStream's integrated platform.

The Real Story Behind Digital Transformation

Ryan shares the honest reality of moving a traditional organization away from Excel-based processes that "work very well" toward a more streamlined, analytical approach. This isn't a success story about overnight change—it's about the messy, ongoing journey of getting people to embrace new ways of working.

Key insights covered:

• Transitioning from a "bare bones, basic and very old" legacy system to OneStream
• Getting Excel-savvy teams to adopt new consolidation and budgeting tools
• The challenge of employee retention when people are stuck doing manual, non-value-add work
• Why having "our most valued people doing non-value-add work" is killing organizations
• Building transaction-level visibility beyond trial balance uploads

Why This Conversation Hits Different

Ryan's candid take on the struggles of change management offers a refreshing perspective on what digital transformation actually looks like in practice. He discusses losing employees due to tedious manual processes and the ongoing effort to give teams the analytical tools they want to use.

Perfect for finance leaders wrestling with legacy systems, change management challenges, or anyone curious about the human side of technology adoption.