Business Challenges
- Limited Analytical Capabilities – Heavy reliance on Excel workbooks to Budget, Forecast, and create Long Range Plans within the organization due to limited analytical and automation capabilities
- Manual and Time Consuming – Planning and Analysis processes were manually intensive and significant effort was required to maintain offline Excel models; information was not readily available
- Lack of Integration – Non-systematic integration of Actuals caused extended Forecasting timelines
Solution
- Enhanced Capabilities – Implemented EPM Cloud Planning application for financial planning and workforce
- System Integration – Developed automation to seamlessly integrate actuals into system daily, allowing for real time seeding of actuals into forecasts, eliminating the need for departments to coordinate offline
- Increased Analytic Capabilities – Developed a highly scalable data architecture to support enhanced analytic capabilities by employee, phase, trial, et cetera
- Process Automation – Implemented processes to automate the calculation of headcount, as well as prorated employee salaries & bonuses based on start month for employee analysis
- Streamlined Long Range Planning – Updated scenario and version management process to improve efficiency and multi-year planning
Impact
- Greater Efficiency – Real time access to actuals for Budgeting, Forecasting, and Long Range Planning with the most up-to-date information available at the beginning of each workday
- Faster, Consistent Results – Automated, real-time, structured data and report delivery constantly in sync with the ERP system
- Scalability – Cloud-based approach delivered seamless expansion of enhanced analysis and reporting needs as the company grows
- Cost and Time Savings – Streamlined processes lead to over 15 hours in time savings per month
- Complete Adoption – Solution was immediately adopted by 100% of users
