Beca moves finance to Oracle cloud in Asia Pacific

Beca has replaced its customised finance system with Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP, covering finance operations across its Asia Pacific business.

The change affects a company with more than 4,300 employees in 24 offices and marks a shift away from manual finance processes in a project-based organisation. Beca adopted Oracle's cloud finance system after reviewing options for a platform that could support growth, compliance requirements, and greater automation.

Founded in 1920, Beca is an employee-owned consultancy working across infrastructure markets including water, energy, defence, transport, buildings, industrial, community planning, and climate resilience. The finance overhaul is part of a broader effort to give staff faster access to financial information and reduce reliance on highly tailored legacy systems.

Mark Fleming, Chief Financial Officer at Beca, said the company needed to modernise as it expanded.

"Beca is a project-driven business, and as we have grown, we needed to move beyond manual processes and equip our teams with timely, trusted information to make better decisions," Fleming said.

He said the new system had already changed how finance teams work across the business.

"Oracle Fusion Applications has helped us increase efficiency, improve visibility, and gain AI-powered insights that support better decision-making. As we adopt new agentic AI capabilities, we see significant opportunity to further transform finance processes, enabling our employees to apply their expertise to better serve clients and improve business outcomes," Fleming said.

Finance shift

Beca said the new setup has improved productivity, lowered costs, and strengthened controls in finance operations. It is also examining how to automate more of its procure-to-pay activity and supplier invoice handling through Oracle's agentic AI tools.

This reflects a wider trend among large professional services and engineering groups seeking to simplify internal processes while managing increasingly distributed teams and complex client work. Finance systems have become a focal point because they sit at the centre of project oversight, spending controls, and reporting.

For Beca, which operates across multiple markets and geographies in Asia Pacific, the challenge has been maintaining reliable, timely data while supporting growth. Replacing a heavily customised finance platform can also reduce the maintenance burden that often comes with legacy systems built up over many years.

Oracle said the Beca project points to rising demand from advisory and consulting firms for integrated finance platforms with built-in analytics and automation.

"As advisory and consulting firms manage complex projects, distributed teams, and evolving client requirements, they need a connected view across operations and AI-powered insights that help improve performance," said Meredith Rowan, Group Vice President of Applications for Australia and New Zealand at Oracle.

She said the implementation also creates a foundation for further process automation within the finance function.

"With Oracle Cloud ERP, Beca has established a connected finance foundation that strengthens controls, automates routine processes, and creates new opportunities to apply agentic AI across finance. This frees its finance team to focus on delivering greater value across the business and to Beca's clients," Rowan said.

Implementation partner

Deloitte New Zealand, a member of Oracle PartnerNetwork, led the implementation. Neither company disclosed the value of the project or the length of the deployment.

Beca's decision comes as companies across the region reassess older enterprise software that has been heavily modified over time. These systems can become difficult to update and expensive to support, particularly when organisations want to standardise reporting, improve governance, or add new forms of automation.

Cloud-based finance platforms have attracted interest because they offer more standardised processes and regular software updates, although large-scale migrations can still be complex for businesses with established workflows and project-based accounting needs. For engineering and consulting groups, any change to finance systems can affect project tracking, procurement, billing, and compliance.

Beca said its next likely focus is purchasing and supplier invoice processing, where it sees scope to reduce repetitive work through agentic AI tools built into Oracle's applications.