PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Switzerland rewired how its teams plan, forecast, and guide the business forward with OneStream. What began as tangled spreadsheets and disconnected workflows became a unified, scalable financial planning and analytics (FP&A) engine built for speed, insight, and confidence.

In a recent webinar, OneStream Head of Product Marketing Nicholas Cox and PwC Switzerland Senior Manager Paolo Buiatti shared how PwC bypassed constraints. PwC’s journey shows what’s possible when FP&A moves from static spreadsheets to a single platform that unifies plans, forecasts, and actuals — all in real time.

Below, see how PwC’s journey unfolded and what you can learn from the webinar.

PwC’s Starting Point

Before OneStream, PwC Switzerland’s FP&A team juggled multiple Excel models and inconsistent data sources. The result? Slow planning. Unreliable reporting. Misaligned cross-team transactions. As Buiatti put it, “There is no Excel without errors.” Those errors mean drifting numbers and time wasted.

Buiatti described mismatched internal transactions, too. One team reported 100, while another reported 110. With no single source of truth, the team spent more time reconciling than analyzing.

Choosing OneStream

PwC needed a single platform to manage everything: budgeting, forecasting, long‑range planning, and reporting. In other words, PwC needed a system that felt approachable, governed workflows naturally, and scaled without a maze of add‑ons. OneStream stood out for exactly that during vendor evaluation. Why? Because OneStream is an extensible platform that unifies actuals, plans, and forecasts – empowering teams to look forward with confidence.

Buiatti stressed the importance of getting the design right before implementation. With a clear vision, PwC transitioned to driver‑based planning, moving away from account-level inputs toward insights rooted in business drivers and scenario flexibility.

That shift changed everything.

Why PwC’s Implementation Worked

Buiatti highlighted three success factors that shaped the outcome:

Stakeholders were involved from day one
Weekly touchpoints kept business partners engaged, aligned, and invested. PwC didn’t “roll out” a new system in a void. Instead, the company got all stakeholders and built it together. Once stakeholders could influence the process, adoption followed naturally.
Scalability was non-negotiable
With OneStream, PwC can now support financial planning for 3,600 people and could double that figure tomorrow without breaking stride. Everyone enters data on the same platform, on the same schedule, and with the same guardrails.
Governance and efficiency improved overnight
Built‑in governance replaced manual checks. Forecasting dropped from days to a single day. Budgeting shrank from 3 months to 4 weeks. The platform cleared space for real analysis while streamlining processes.

The Results

By adopting OneStream, PwC Switzerland achieved the following:

50% faster budgeting cycles, freeing time for value‑added work
A single, trusted source of truth for all FP&A activities
Lightning‑fast scenario planning, making comparison and decision‑making easier than ever
Integrated budgeting and forecasting that finally feels connected — because it is

As Cox noted, budgeting is no longer a siloed event. Instead, budgeting is now part of a unified, continuous planning rhythm.

Looking Ahead: FP&A + Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The conversation also touched on where FP&A is heading. Buiatti sees AI as a powerful partner, one that accelerates insights and automates tedious work. But he’s also realistic: FP&A teams will always need human judgment to turn machine‑generated signals into strategy.

The Takeaway for FP&A Leaders

PwC Switzerland’s journey offers clear lessons for any FP&A team ready to move beyond spreadsheets:

Build the foundation first: A clear design ensures smoother execution
Bring business partners in early: Adoption hinges on ownership
Prioritize scalability and governance: Your future self will thank you
Develop both technical and business skills: Modern FP&A demands both

In the end, PwC Switzerland proved that uniting data, workflows, and people on one platform transforms FP&A into a strategic engine — not an operational burden.

Want to Learn More?

Check out the webinar for more information on PwC’s transformation.

Transforming FP&A: PwC Switzerland’s OneStream Journey