Opera, a leading global internet brand known for its innovative web browsers and digital services, faced growing complexity as its business expanded across multiple entities and currencies. Managing both financial and human resources data across Opera’s global structure proved challenging, with limitations in reporting accuracy, time-intensive processes, and difficulty accessing real-time insights.
To address these issues, Opera turned to Workday to unify its financial and HR systems, streamline operations, and gain better visibility. The company implemented Workday Financial Management and Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) to establish a single source of truth for both finance and HR data, driving consistency and efficiency across its organizational environment.
We needed a solution that would integrate our financial management with HR in a way that supports both our rapid business expansion and compliance requirements.
Senior Director Financial Reporting
The journey to a full-suite solution for finance and HR.
Initially, Opera’s management sought a single platform for all HR processes to increase transparency and enable “reports in one click,” noted Zoya Kostovetska, corporate system manager at Opera.
After a successful HR implementation, the finance team recognized the platform’s full potential. “Financial leadership decided to transition to the Workday platform,” said Kostovetska. “That’s how we adopted a full suite solution for both finance and HR. With these integrations, our reporting and business processes became significantly more transparent and reliable.”
From the finance side, Roman Bergmann, senior director of Financial Reporting, recalled challenges with “different companies using different accounting systems.”
Opera aimed to streamline operations through a unified platform. “We wanted the entire financial reporting process, from A to Z, in one system,” Bergmann explained, “including both entity-level and group-level financial reporting interconnected with the HR processes.” This approach was key to fostering cross-functional collaboration.
Where flexibility meets functionality.
As a dynamic and agile company, Opera needed a solution that could support its continuous growth and evolving needs. “Workday helps us build, structure, and set up a system that supports our business needs,” Bergmann explained. “As a listed company, we require the robust functionality of larger enterprises, but we need it to be scaled precisely to our size and complexity and capable of growing with us. Workday was the answer we were looking for.”
Kostovetska added, “It is a very agile system and easy to scale. When we build or acquire a company in a new location, it’s simple to extend existing processes and adapt to new requirements and country-specific regulations. This flexibility covers both HR and finance functions, from local hiring and onboarding to employee management. “It’s impressive how straightforward and efficient this is,” Kostovetska said.
Workday data and analytics features have also enhanced informed decision-making. “Workday provides the platform for various types of data,” Bergmann said. “It enables us to generate the reports we require, whether for management purposes or regulatory compliance.”
Expanding into new markets has also become more manageable. “Workday offers customizable fields that can be integrated into our processes depending on location or country specifics, or we can create our own tailored fields,” shared Kostovetska. Similarly, adapting expense reports to new regions is “intuitive and hassle-free.”
Workday is very agile and easy to scale. When we build or acquire a company in a new region, extending and adapting processes to new regulations is simple and efficient.
Corporate System Manager
Less complexity, more control.
For Opera’s lean corporate team, efficiency and cost-effectiveness are paramount. Workday provides an effective system that doesn't demand a large IT department. “It’s important to have an effective system that doesn’t require a full department of IT or admins to manage it,” stated Bergmann.
The user-friendly Workday interface is a significant benefit. “Workday is a simple and intuitive system to navigate for most end users,” observed Kostovetska. Its built-in features and robust online community reduce confusion and the need for extensive IT expertise.
The unified platform for finance and HR has streamlined business processes and fostered collaboration. “Workday has helped us streamline our processes, especially cross-border and cross-functional,” said Bergmann. “Different teams, even across various locations and companies within the group, can still be in the same workflow. Another advantage is the ability to grant external auditors access, allowing them to work independently and efficiently, which saves us time.”
“Expense reports are another good example, showing how HR users can access their expenses, and once approved, an accounting journal is automatically generated, making it a perfect combination of HR and finance tools,” noted Kostovetska.
Efficiency engineered for what’s next.
The Workday suite has brought significant cost and time savings. “We have saved the equivalent of 1 full-time employee while also saving time, reducing risk of error, and lowering audit costs by consolidating group financial statements within Workday and eliminating the need for a separate system,” said Bergmann.
On the HR side, digitization has made a noticeable difference. “Moving from paperwork to a flexible digital setup saves time. The consolidated data from performance reviews can then feed directly into finance for merit processes, helping managers make compensation decisions,” noted Kostovetska.
Looking ahead, Opera is on track to start embracing AI-driven innovation. “We’re working on optimizing all possible features. It’s very interesting, and I think curiosity and openness to innovation are key to successfully leveraging AI in our company” shared Kostovetska.
“We are still in the testing phase for fully adopting Workday AI functionalities for financial forecasting. While we are already quite familiar with this, we still need to learn how we can enhance our own human performance to make this happen, so we’ve excited to include Workday Illuminate™ on our roadmap,” said Bergmann.