With Renata Marchwinska, Head of Statutory Compliance , ABB &
Ewelina Dominiak, Senior Project Manager, ABB
ABB's approach to centralising statutory reporting at scale
Discover the lessons from ABB's statutory reporting transformation, from improving consistency and efficiency to managing compliance across global and local requirements
The challenge of fragmented statutory reporting
For statutory reporting teams, quality — minimising errors — is the top priority, yet many organisations remain at basic or intermediate maturity in their use of automation and technology for record-to-report processes. This means they continue to rely on manual workflows that limit scalability, accuracy and insight.
At ABB, statutory processes and audit coordination were initially managed locally, with minimal standardisation and no shared tools. Manual workflows dominated, limiting visibility and consistency across entities. The business also faced fragmented, country-specific statutory knowledge, a disconnect between financial statements and the source trial balance generated from the ERP system, and a fully manual process for preparing notes and disclosures using Word or Excel.
Building a Centre of Excellence for statutory reporting
ABB worked with Thomson Reuters and deployed ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting through a structured, multi-phase transformation journey. The approach was not a "big bang", but a phased transition from localised reporting functions to a centralised ONESOURCE Centre of Excellence.
“The big accelerator for our centralization was the purchase of the ONESOURCE tool.”
Renata Marchwinska
Head of Statutory Compliance, ABB
ABB first introduced a tracking tool to improve transparency and began defining a governance framework. Audit coordination was then centralised within the Centre of Excellence, laying the foundation for broader process alignment. Technology was later deployed to optimise statutory reporting, including integration with ABB's Global ERP system and the Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE platform. This enabled full visibility into reporting workflows and accelerated centralisation across regions.
“Thomson Reuters offers bilingual country templates, updated twice a year. That was a big feature, the game changer.”
Renata Marchwinska
Head of Statutory Compliance, ABB
Implementation was managed centrally, following a standardised, repeatable process across countries to ensure consistency and control. Post-implementation, the Centre of Excellence technical team provided ongoing support and advisory services, including issue resolution, template upgrades and additional training to ensure sustained adoption and process maturity.
The outcome of ABB's statutory reporting transformation
ABB's journey demonstrates how a global organisation can move from fragmented, manual workflows to a centralised, insight-driven reporting model. By embedding technology, standardising processes and empowering a Centre of Excellence, ABB improved quality and audit readiness while also reducing costs and complexity across its statutory landscape.
“ABB templates are now giving us up to 80% of all data completed just based on the trail balance input.”
Renata Marchwinska
Head of Statutory Compliance, ABB
The implementation served as a catalyst for transitioning from local to centralised reporting. It reduced reliance on fragmented, country-specific statutory knowledge, minimised back-and-forth through automation of core statutory workflows, and enabled internal teams to scale through standardised templates and processes. ABB is now moving towards a highly centralised model, with 93% of statutory reporting managed through the Centre of Excellence.
“In 2024 there were 21 templates implemented for 39 legal entities without any significant issues, and in line with the project timeline.”
Renata Marchwinska
Head of Statutory Compliance, ABB
At a glance
Industry
Industrial technology
Headquarters
Switzerland
Solutions
Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE
(Statutory Reporting)
Year founded
1988
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