IBM Cognos TM1 streamlines finance activities for our client, Rayonier, when they transitioned from traditional, spreadsheet-based financial planning and reporting processes. But the company also realized some unexpected benefits of using TM1.

Rayonier is a real estate investment trust (REIT) and one of the largest private landowners in the U.S. The company owns, leases or manages approximately 2.7 million acres of timberlands in the U.S. South, U.S. Pacific Northwest and New Zealand, supplying timber to a wide variety of markets, including pulp, paper, lumber, renewable energy production and other wood products.

In 2014 the company spun off its manufacturing business, which marked a perfect opportunity for the finance group to consolidate the multiple budgeting, planning and reporting systems it had acquired over many decades in business. The company also decided to overhaul its entire chart of accounts. These changes set the stage for the organization to move off of various systems and consolidate its financials onto TM1.

Today, Rayonier relies on TM1 for many different aspects of its financial planning and reporting processes. The company sees many benefits from using TM1, including:

• Streamlined processes with faster and more efficient close processes
• Greater visibility, increased participation and more ownership of numbers
• Significant hard and soft financial savings

“We now have a much more streamlined process than before,” said Bill Tan, senior accounting manager, Rayonier. “We’re no longer maintaining multiple systems. We estimate we’ve reduced our close process by 15%.”

It’s the soft financial savings that are the unexpected benefits of using IBM Cognos TM1. Moving off of multiple systems onto one universal solution has significantly reduced the amount of training new employees need to go through. “Activities that used to take several days can now be done in less than a day,” said Tan. “We have much more visibility, and we’ve pushed planning down to more individuals. People are now much closer to the process. And overall, people are much more productive.”

Another key benefit of moving to TM1 was that, according to Keith Tucker, senior accountant at Rayonier, “retiring legacy systems saved licensing costs and server costs.”

Read the full case study on how Rayonier is using TM1 for financial planning and reporting.

Read more about how IBM Cognos TM1 is used by REITs:

IBM Cognos TM1 for Capacity Planning in the REIT Industry