Part 2 of 4  | Interview Series: Business Transformation with Projects Expert   Interview with: A Life Star Senior Project Accountant, Global Biopharma Life Sciences Organisation. Yugwan: Let’s talk about life before Projects Expert. What were the biggest pain points in your day-to-day work? Project Accountant:   Honestly? It was chaos. Excel was running the show. We manage research projects that are complex, regulated, and constantly evolving. Oracle PPM gave us the backbone, sure, but it just wasn’t flexible enough. Every time a timeline shifted, or we needed to rework dependencies, it meant exporting to spreadsheets. We’d build workarounds, validate offline, and re-upload. And even then, we weren’t sure if we were working with the right numbers. It felt like we were spending all our time just keeping the data upright-never actually using it to make decisions. Yugwan: What changed when you brought in Projects Expert? Project Accountant:   The difference was immediate. Projects Expert didn’t replace Oracle-it unlocked it. Thanks to Project Expert’s Hammock Task capabilities and single screen input, I can now make all updates, dependencies, resources and planned costs right inside a single screen. No toggling between tabs, no exporting. And it’s all live data. The second I make a change; it’s reflected across the system. But more than that, it shifted our mindset. Instead of reacting when things go wrong, we’re planning ahead, spotting risks early. I’ve gone from number chaser to decision-support. Yugwan: Was the transition smooth? Any bumps along the way? Project Accountant:   I was expecting friction, but it was actually very smooth.    The tool feels like part of Oracle, not something separate. So right away, it didn’t feel foreign. And the training wasn’t theoretical- they showed us how to use it on our own projects. That made a big difference.  Also, their support team? Fast, clear, human. When you’re learning something new, that kind of backup matters.  Yugwan: And what about productivity or governance - any noticable impact? Project Accountant: Oh, absolutely. We’re saving at least 10–15 hours a week just on plan updates. Our governance has tightened-no more scattered spreadsheets or undocumented changes. Reports are current, not cobbled together from three systems and a panic the night before. It’s also changed how we run project meetings. We’ve got a single source of truth now. The data’s reliable, visual, and ready when we are. Yugwan: What features have made the biggest difference? Project Accountant: Oh, absolutely. Single-page editing – I can update an entire project plan from one place. Milestone-driven scheduling – If a key date shifts, everything downstream adjusts automatically. Co-authoring controls – No more people stepping on each other’s updates. We can assign specific sections to specific users. And the dashboards? I used to dread pulling status reports. Now it’s a couple of clicks, and they’re insightful. Yugwan: Any advice for teams still relying on spreadsheets? Project Accountant:   If you're managing projects in Oracle but still living in Excel, you're probably stuck in firefighting mode. I was too. Projects Expert let us drop the drama. It gave us control, confidence, and the time to support the business, not just reconcile the data. Whether you're in biotech, aerospace, engineering, or infrastructure-anywhere you're running complex, multi-phase projects-this is a game-changer. Up Next? In the next part of our series, we hear from one of the implementation leads who helped deliver Projects Expert into a highly complex Oracle PPM environment. From navigating integration fears to scaling without disruption, they reveal what really happens behind the scenes-and why the tool feels less like an add-on and more like a native evolution of Oracle itself. We also explore what’s coming next: AI-driven risk scoring, predictive planning, and connected insights that stretch beyond project management into procurement, HR, and more. If you’ve ever asked, “ How do we get more out of Oracle without breaking what already works? ”-you won’t want to miss this one. Who are Life Star? Life Star are a Projects Expert Customer, and for the purpose of this article, we have changed the company’s real name to Life Star to retain commercial anonymity. As this transformation story illustrates, organisations like  Life Star - a global immunology company with over 1,500 employees and operations spanning Europe, the US, and Asia are setting the pace for innovation in the life sciences.  With a strong commitment to advancing antibody-based therapies for autoimmune diseases, Life Star is not only commercialising approved treatments in over 30 countries, but also actively managing a pipeline of more than 20 late-stage clinical trials. As an organisation, they have ambitious growth plans, and this is where enabling technologies like Projects Expert play a critical role. In high-stakes, data-intensive environments, success hinges on visibility, control, and agility. For project-driven companies like Life Star, the future will belong to those who can blend rigour with speed, using tools not just to manage projects, but to power decisions . Like  what you read? Share it! Follow us on LinkedIn  to stay abreast of more interesting industry blogs, news, and upcoming events. About Projects Expert Projects Expert is the first-of-its-kind Oracle partner that specialises in project-centric enterprise Solutions. We aim to deliver sustainable, robust, and business-friendly Oracle solutions for project-driven organisations. To know more about what we can do for you, visit our website at www.projectsexpert.com . Reach out to us at +44 330 330 5154 or drop a note at info@projectsexpert.com

Part 1 of 4  | Interview Series: Financial Transformation with Projects Expert  Interview with the CFO of Life Star , a Global Biopharma Life Sciences Organisation. In this piece, we talk through a CFO’s experience of adopting Projects Expert’s SaaS solution to enhance their Oracle PPM Cloud experience. Life Star had implemented Oracle Cloud as its Finance and Project solution, but encountered a challenge with the adoption of the Oracle PPM module. With Projects Expert's help, they rebuilt confidence in the system among key stakeholders and, in the process, rolled out full financial management of Projects across all their Global research and project sites. Our CEO and Founder, Yugwan Mittal , talks to Life Star’s CFO about the journey to project success. Yugwan: Let’s start with the challenge. Why wasn’t Oracle PPM Cloud delivering what you needed? CFO: At face value, Oracle PPM Cloud looked like the complete package. However, once our project teams, especially those in R&D, began using it, the gaps became apparent quickly. Our research projects are high-value and intricately structured, tracking linked tasks with dependencies, managing milestone-driven funding, and generating comprehensive reports. Oracle gave us a robust backbone, but managing and updating large-scale project financials became laborious. We experienced some challenges in the following areas: Lack of milestone-based planning Complexity of the user interface for Large Projects Inability to link Financial Tasks Time Consuming Multi-Screen Navigation People started reverting to spreadsheets, which undermined compliance and financial visibility. The turning point was when our business leads began to disengage entirely with the tool (PPM). We were losing control and insight at the most critical planning stage. Yugwan: Why do you think the business was disengaging? CFO:   Oracle PPM gave us the structure, but not the flexibility. For a research-heavy business like ours, with high-value, heavily regulated projects, the ability to build, update, and manage complex financial plans is critical. But we found ourselves bottlenecked. Managing project plans in Oracle PPM Cloud requires considerable manual effort. The system lacks support for linking tasks, and its user interface is unwieldy, necessitating multiple clicks to access even basic information. Reviewing large or complex project plans is virtually impossible, making PPM inefficient not only for management but also for effectively visualising large project plans, which are quite common for R&D Projects. Project owners struggled to keep plans current. Dependencies weren’t easy to manage. And before long, teams were defaulting to spreadsheets. That fragmented oversight made real-time financial insight nearly impossible. It was disheartening to invest in a top-tier platform but not get the engagement or control we needed. Yugwan: Were you hesitant to bring in a third-party solution? CFO:   Definitely. We’ve built our operational stack around Oracle, so bringing in anything external triggers all the usual alarm bells: Will it break our security model? Will it slow us down? Who supports it when something breaks? The idea of layering another system over Oracle felt risky-until Projects Expert showed us it wasn’t another system. It was more like a native extension. Yugwan: So what changed your mind? What made Projects Expert credible? CFO:   The turning point was how invisible it felt. Projects Expert integrates so seamlessly that users don’t even realise they’ve moved beyond Oracle. The interface is familiar, the controls are consistent, and it respects our existing Single Sign-On and role-based access policies. There’s no re-training, no re-permissioning. It just works; there is a seamless connection with the Oracle UI that evolves as Oracle releases new features. And that’s not just skin-deep. They understood the DNA of project-based organisations, from the regulatory environment in life sciences to the governance frameworks in sectors like manufacturing and infrastructure. It wasn’t a sales pitch; it was like talking to someone who’d lived through the same headaches we had. Yugwan : When it became time to make a decision , what tipped the balance? CFO:   It was the combination of usability, insight, and planning power. Milestone-driven planning provided tighter alignment between financials and delivery. Real-time risk and dependency tracking helped reduce surprises mid-stream. From a process efficiency angle, we reduced our project planning time by nearly 40% and eliminated approximately 70% of spreadsheet-based ‘shadow systems’. For a COO or CFO, that’s gold. You get transparency, accountability, and engagement from your teams. Additionally, it’s scalable, and we are now considering using the tool for non-R&D projects. The Projects Expert client list was extremely helpful; they have worked with numerous high-profile organisations, including the Bank of England and Deloitte, which made it easier for us to sell Projects Expert internally to the board. Yugwan: Looking back, was it worth the risk? CFO:   100%. Our project teams are engaged again. We’ve moved away from spreadsheet chaos and restored auditability. Financial oversight is stronger, and strategic planning is no longer a matter of guesswork. I won’t pretend there weren’t tough conversations, especially internally. However, the ROI has been tangible, and we’ve regained our governance confidence. It’s given us a model that’s audit-proof, user-friendly, and forward-looking. Most importantly, it’s not a workaround. It’s a strategic extension. Projects Expert has helped us derive real value from Oracle PPM, without the cost and chaos of starting ov er. Yugwan: And what about the future- what's next? CFO:   The roadmap is what excites me most. Their AI integration plans-things like predictive planning and automated risk scoring-will take us beyond reactive project management into something much more dynamic. Whether you're in biotech, aerospace, engineering, or manufacturing, if you're managing large, complex projects and relying on Oracle, this is the tool that unlocks its full potential. Final Thoughts For any CFO or COO weighing up whether to stretch their Oracle stack or bend their processes to fit-this is your middle ground. With Projects Expert , we didn’t compromise. We accelerated. Who are Life Star? Life Star are a Projects Expert Customer, and for the purpose of this article, we have changed the company’s real name to Life Star to retain commercial anonymity. As this transformation story illustrates, organisations like  Life Star - a global immunology company with over 1,500 employees and operations spanning Europe, the US, and Asia are setting the pace for innovation in the life sciences. With a strong commitment to advancing antibody-based therapies for autoimmune diseases, Life Star is not only commercialising approved treatments in over 30 countries, but also actively managing a pipeline of more than 20 late-stage clinical trials. As an organisation, they have ambitious growth plans, and this is where enabling technologies like Projects Expert play a critical role. In high-stakes, data-intensive environments, success hinges on visibility, control, and agility. For project-driven companies like Life Star, the future will belong to those who can blend rigour with speed, using tools not just to manage projects, but to power decisions . What's Next? Stay tuned for Part 2, where we speak with a Project Accountant/Finance Business Partner about how financial planning transformed from a reactive chore into a proactive advantage. Like  what you read? Share it! Follow us on LinkedIn  to stay abreast of more interesting industry blogs, news, and upcoming events. About Projects Expert Projects Expert is the first-of-its-kind Oracle partner that specialises in project-centric enterprise Solutions. We aim to deliver sustainable, robust, and business-friendly Oracle solutions for project-driven organisations. To know more about what we can do for you, visit our website at www.projectsexpert.com . Reach out to us at +44 330 330 5154 or drop a note at info@projectsexpert.com