Driving Results
Your data should tell you a story. A story about where your organization has been, where it is today, and where it is going tomorrow. For most organizations the challenge is in identifying the right data components and putting them together in a way that’s easy to understand and easy for users of all types and skill sets to understand. Our team at Revelwood is extremely proud of how we’ve helped hundreds of organizations get the right stories from their FP&A data. Read these select case studies to understand what our solutions can do for you.
Midstream Oil & Gas Company Builds a Pipeline of Visibility with Workday Adaptive Planning
A midstream company focused on providing creative and transparent commercial solutions to oil and gas producers in the Southwest U.S. was looking for a solution to more accurately budget and forecast for more strategic financial management.
“We felt that Workday Adaptive Planning offered us the best of both worlds. It’s easy software to use with a compelling price point relative to other products on the market.”
Corporate Finance Associate
Midstream Oil & Gas Company
Challenge
Streamline budgeting and forecasting, while enhancing data visibility and improving reporting accuracy.
Solution
Workday Adaptive Planning
Benefits
- Better control over the budgeting cycle, with reduced errors and discrepancies
- The ability to analyze performance, identify cost-saving opportunities and enable data-driven decision-making
- Freeing up finance resources for more value-added activities to respond more quickly to changing market dynamics.
Managing Growth in the Cannabis Industry with IBM Planning Analytics
Parallel is one of the largest privately held, vertically integrated, multi-state cannabis operators in the United States. The company cultivates, produces and processes cannabis for medical purposes. It also operates marijuana dispensaries. Its mission is to bring well-being and improved quality of life through cannabinoids. Parallel currently operates in four markets: Florida, Massachusetts, Texas and Pennsylvania.
“Planning Analytics has streamlined our FP&A processes. Our FP&A team meets with cost center owners every month to review the P&L statement. This is incredibly helpful since our market dynamics change completely every 4-6 months. We can then apply those changes to our finance model immediately.”
Hugh Do
Director of FP&A
Parallel
Challenge
Manage the operations and growth of the company through rolling forecasts and gain the insight needed to grow revenue while retaining their existing footprint.
Solution
IBM Planning Analytics
Benefits
- Rolling forecasts that can be easily adjusted in a continuously changing market
- Quickly build reports for management within days of closing the books
- Provide a plan for expansion, maximizing revenue without expanding the company’s footprint
Lewis Group of Companies Easily Manages More than 500 Bank Reconciliations with BlackLine
The Lewis Group of Companies, established in 1955, is one of the nation’s largest privately held real estate development companies. The organization develops mixed-use planned communities and residential subdivisions in Southern California, Northern California and Nevada. It also develops and owns rental communities, retail shopping centers and office and industrial parks. To date it has built 58,000 homes, developed 24,000,000 square feet of retail, office and industrial space and 35,000 acres of land. The organization owns and manages 11,500 apartments.
“As a previous BlackLine customer, I quickly realized it could be a good solution for us. The big question for us was ‘could it scale to our needs?’ After a competitive review with FloQast, we decided BlackLine would give us a lot more ‘bang for our buck.”
Kimberly Kinsey
Financial Reporting Controller
Lewis Management Corp.
Challenge
Reduce the amount of time for reconciling nearly 500 bank reconciliations every month
Solution
BlackLine
Benefits
- Reallocate one of two FTEs dedicated to managing monthly bank reconciliations
- Streamline bank reconciliations, balance sheet reconciliations and tasks associated with the monthly close process
- Have an easily found, single system of record for all reconciliations and related documents
- Ensure that the general ledger ending balance ties to the reconciliation
Nautel Connects with Detailed Forecasting Using Workday Adaptive Planning
Nautel, based in Hackett’s Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada, was established in 1969 and has earned a reputation as a world leader in the design, manufacture, sales and support of high-power, solid-state radio frequency (RF) products for radio broadcast, navigation, sonar and industrial applications. More than 20,000 customers in 177 countries rely on Nautel’s RF solutions. The company has more than 200 employees and facilities in Canada and the U.S.
“Working with Revelwood on our Adaptive Planning implementation was a great experience. One of our Revelwood consultants has a background in training – and it showed. Rather than Revelwood just taking over everything, they talked me through how to do things myself. This is huge. Revelwood trained me on Adaptive Planning as we went along.”
Kris Gilbert
Controller
Nautel
Challenge
Produce quarterly rolling forecasts with a high level of detail
Solution
Workday Adaptive Planning
Benefits
- Eliminate broken formulas and other errors common in manual spreadsheets
- Reduce time spent on forecasting, freeing time for scenario planning and other strategic analysis
- Easily manage and calculate complex data incorporating multiple tax scenarios and currencies
Adapting to Market Fluctuations with Enterprise Planning
Texans Credit Union, founded in 1953 by 11 Texas Instruments employees, now serves over 117,000 members. Its mission is to improve the well-being of all Texans. The organization is a full-service, not-for-profit institution with members throughout the Dallas Fort Worth area. Texans Credit Union has more than $2 billion in assets and is one of the largest member-owned financial institutions in the DFW area.
“Our executive meetings consist of our CEO, CXO, CPO and me. When the team asks me ‘what happens if we do x?’ I can easily click a few buttons on the dashboard and run that scenario. I no longer have to tell them ‘I’ll get back to you on that.’”
Ben Hart, CFO
Texans Credit Union
Challenge
Lack of a single source of FP&A data and an inability to do on-the-fly scenario planning to provide budgeting and forecasting answers to senior management in real-time.
Solution
Workday Adaptive Planning
Benefits
- Streamlined and more efficient budgeting, forecasting and reporting
- A dynamic dashboard for easy visualization of the numbers
- Ability to quickly provide insights and answers to “what-if” scenario questions while in meetings with senior management and board members
- Increased collaboration, communication and decision-making
LightBox Illuminates Accounting with BlackLine Financial Close Management
LightBox provides real estate data and workflow solutions primarily to commercial real estate customers including lenders, brokers, environmental professionals, property assessors and appraisers. LightBox also provides location-based analytics to other industries such as telecommunications, investors, insurers, government agencies, technology providers and builders. The company is backed by Silver Lake and Battery Ventures.
“We’re a growing company. BlackLine has enabled us to increase the volume of reconciliations without adding more people to the accounting team. Our accounting team has greater job satisfaction and we’re able to bring more value to LightBox.”
Thomas Munoz
Controller, LightBox
Challenge
A manual, Excel-based process for monthly reconciliations and close task management.
Solution
BlackLine Financial Close Management, with Balance Sheet Reconciliation and Task Management
Benefits
- Process hundreds of reconciliations more efficiently and provide more time to investigate the accounts that are more complex or have variances
- Know at all times where a journal entry or report is in the process
- Streamline the close process
- Complete accounting reconciliations and close tasks with increased control, reliance and visibility to the process
Transforming Finance with Workday Adaptive Planning
Rogers & Brown, a family-owned business, was founded in 1968 in Charleston, South Carolina to fill a service void in the logistics industry. Today the company consists of three entities, with 130 employees, providing a full range of transportation and supply chain services.
“I can’t imagine where we would be today without Adaptive Planning and an FP&A team. We’ve had so much transformation in a short time. Adaptive Planning has made us proactive, rather than reactive. We’re very excited for the future things we can achieve with Adaptive Planning and Revelwood.”
Capers Barr
FP&A Manager and General Counsel
Rogers & Brown
Challenge
Evolve from Microsoft Excel-based budgeting and planning, while creating a new FP&A department and reacting to significant changes in the industry.
Solution
Workday Adaptive Planning with OfficeConnect
Benefits
- Visibility into real-time financials
- Ability to identify trends, be proactive and find opportunities for growth
- Ability to provide senior management and the board with dashboards and reports monthly, requiring just a simple refresh
Sowing the Seeds of FP&A Transformation with Workday Adaptive Planning
Invaio Sciences, Inc., a Flagship Pioneering company, is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with offices in North Carolina, Florida, Brazil, Italy and Switzerland. Invaio is striving to accelerate the leap to a more nature-positive era for agriculture by solving performance and delivery challenges of traditional chemical and biological crop protection.
“The way we do financial planning, forecasting and reporting are like night and day. We’ve gained efficiencies across the board.”
Ryan Garceau
Head of Operations & Finance
Invaio
Challenge
Reduce errors and increase accuracy in financial planning, forecasting and reporting.
Solution
Workday Adaptive Planning
Benefits
- Recording and reporting on worldwide payroll with more detailed country-level data
- Increased accuracy of data, leading to better decisions based on current cash flow
- Increased efficiencies in all FP&A activities
Apex Entertainment Performs Enterprise Planning with Workday Adaptive Planning
Apex Entertainment, headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts, operates four family entertainment centers in the northeast U.S. including Virginia Beach, Syracuse, Albany and Marlborough. Apex offers attractions that are fun for all ages with activities such as Indoor Go Karts, Bowling, Laser Tag, Escape Rooms, Ropes Courses, Arcade and Redemption, Sports Simulators, Axe Throwing, Mini Golf, Bumper Cars, Virtual Reality and state-of-the-art event meeting space. Each location offers a full-service dining experience in The Pit Stop Tavern, with a menu that includes 80 gluten-free options as well as vegetarian options.
“Relying on Excel to manage our financial processes handicapped us more than helped us. We needed a solution that gave us insight into how to fix problems and enabled us to manage our business in real-time.”
Marcus Kemblowski
COO
Apex Entertainment
Challenge
Move away from spreadsheet-based budgeting, forecasting and reporting for more insight into the operations of the business.
Solution
Workday Adaptive Planning
Benefits
- Managers can easily enter their numbers and are assured the calculations are correct
- Forecasts by location and by type of activity
- Reduce time and manual effort spent gathering data across multiple systems, tables and spreadsheets
- Elegant, customized reports
- Gain insights into revenue and operations based on accurate budgeting, forecasting and reporting
Unified Planning and Reporting with IBM Planning Analytics
This unique asset management firm consists of boutique investment managers and offers its clients high-quality investment strategies. The company has a multi-manager, multi-strategy approach to meeting the needs of different types of clients and to generate compelling performance.
“We had unique requirements, specifically for our Assets Under Management and Revenue Models and that’s why we selected IBM Planning Analytics. The backbone of IBM Planning Analytics is TM1, a mature, battle-tested solution.”
Vice President of Financial Planning & Analytics
Challenge
Create one comprehensive forecasting, planning and reporting solution from multiple data sources.
Solution
IBM Planning Analytics integrated with a Workday General Ledger and custom models.
Benefits
- Empowers senior managers with immediate access to high integrity data
- Serves as the primary source for public reporting
- Eliminates manual processes and automates many financial reporting requirements
- Consolidates data from multiple sources into a single version of the truth
- Enables timely and accurate financial forecasts
Berks Homes in a League of Their Own with Enterprise Planning Using Workday Adaptive Planning
Berks Homes has been building homes since 1973, offering homes that combine practicality with inspiration. Berks Homes prides itself on building homes that “just feel right.” Today the company builds quality-made homes across Eastern Pennsylvania, in Berks County, Chester County, Lancaster County, Lebanon County and more.
“We are now using Workday Adaptive Planning for many strategic finance activities. Not only do we have more timely and comprehensive reports, but we are also saving an incredible amount of time. Previously it would take 10-15 hours for our team to gather the data. Now we can collect the data we need and perform the analysis and reporting in just four hours.”
Joe Campbell
Controller
Berks Homes
Challenge
Move to a sophisticated, but easy-to-use FP&A solution to deliver insights that the company can use to have accurate and up-to-date cash flow forecasting to manage strategic growth.
Solution
Workday Adaptive Planning
Benefits
- Provide senior management and other stakeholders with visibility into financial performance, cash flow and more
- Integrated with data from MarkSystems, a home building ERP software platform
- Reduce time and manual effort spent gathering data across multiple systems, tables and spreadsheets
- Self-service options for frontline managers and senior leadership
- One source of the truth, with integrated and updated forecasts and reports
Rayonier Makes Better Use of Resources with IBM Planning Analytics
Rayonier, a real estate investment trust (REIT), is 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.
“Activities that used to take several days can now be done in less than a day. We have 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.”
Bill Tan
Senior Accounting Manager
Rayonier
Challenge
Rayonier wanted to move away from the myriad of budgeting, finance and reporting systems it was using across multiple divisions onto one single, more easily used and managed solution.
Solution
Revelwood built several custom, complex models using IBM Planning Analytics to incorporate unique aspects of Rayonier’s business, such as timber harvests and land sales, while also streamlining activities that were previously cumbersome.
Benefits
- Streamlined processes with faster and more efficient close processes
- Greater visibility, increased participation and more ownership
- Significant hard and soft financial savings
Leveraging Complex Modeling in IBM Planning Analytics at New York Blood Center
Transforming financial planning and reporting for one of the largest independent, community-based blood centers in the country enables Finance to be seen as a value-added partner to the organization.
“With easy access to such powerful financial information in IBM Planning Analytics, Finance is seen as a value-added partner to our businesses and is able to support them in making strategic decisions that will enable us to meet our growth objectives.”
Beth Gibson
CFO
New York Blood Center
Challenge
New York Blood Center needed to completely overhaul its financial reporting system and processes in order to deliver more accurate, consistent and timelier information to its senior executives and Board of Directors.
Solution
Revelwood built several custom and complex models in IBM Planning Analytics to incorporate data from disparate systems into one fast and comprehensive planning and reporting solution.
Benefits
- Regular and timely monthly reporting with greater detail and visibility for line-of-business managers, senior directors and the Board of Directors.
- Easy integration with other systems to report on strategic merger and acquisition activities.
- The ability to perform complex modeling and forecasting, allocations and driver-based planning, enabling more accurate reporting on revenues and expenses by department.
Regency Energizes Budgeting and Reporting with IBM Cognos TM1 and Revelwood
A financial performance management solution with minimal IT resources for a publicly traded energy company significantly reduces man-hours spent on the budgeting process.
“Our monthly variance process is now substantially smoother. We’ve easily reduced our time spent budgeting by at least half.”
Tina Cone
Manager of Budgeting and Analysis
Regency Energy Transfer
Challenge
Regency had a long budgeting process, complicated by dealing with reports and budgets from more than 100 departments. In many cases the divisions had different formats and processes for budgeting. Relying on Excel resulted in version control issues, no central repository for budgeting information and an inability to collaborate. The cumbersome budgeting process offered little time or accurate data for in-depth analysis.
Solution
Regency selected IBM Cognos TM1 as a financial performance management solution for its finance department and many divisions. TM1 serves as a common platform for storing, monitoring and analyzing financial information across the company. Revelwood developed the models and cubes for the TM1 applications, taught the finance team to develop their own cubes and dimensions and trained the end user community on using the new TM1-based applications.
Benefits
- An estimated 50% reduction in man-hours spent on monthly budgeting.
- One consolidated solution for all budgeting data, delivering better consistency and transparency of data.
- A smoother budgeting process, eliminating version control issues.
- Empowers key team members with the skills and knowledge to develop new financial performance management applications.
- A foundation for rolling out financial performance management on an operational level to more than 100 departments and two different general ledger systems.
Modernizing FP&A Systems for Speed of Business Forecasting
This financial services firm’s FP&A “secret sauce” is so secret, they didn’t want to share their company name with the competition. But they did want to share their success working with IBM Planning Analytics and Revelwood.
“Working with Revelwood was awesome. The hands-on consultants working with us were incredibly responsive. From the get-go, the Revelwood team had a great ability to understand what we needed.”
Vice President of Finance
Challenge
Create one comprehensive forecasting solution for multiple aspects of a financial services firm.
Solution
IBM Planning Analytics and Revelwood Lightspeed with custom models for forecasting.
Benefits
- Ability to forecast on a weekly basis, with fewer errors
- More comprehensive and complex forecasting
- More efficient ad hoc analysis
- Easier board slide creation
- Closer relationships with departments outside of Finance
Expanding Enterprise Performance Management/FP&A Throughout the Company
This pharmaceutical company is a top-10 injectable manufacturer with sales of over $1 billion. The growing business is comprised of generic and branded injectables and branded IV iron therapies. This US-based manufacturing company is known for its responsiveness and reliability.
“Revelwood gave us the ability to build our own models and we’ve been able to expand on that. We’ve built several non-finance models around production, metrics, production data, production volume, quality data and more. It’s been extremely easy to create financial operational metrics and KPIs.”
Finance Director
Challenge
Implement a single, modern EPM/FP&A solution that can be used in a self-service model throughout the organization.
Solution
Workday Adaptive Planning
Benefits
- Move an offline, manual and Excel-based FP&A process into the cloud with integrations and automations
- Tie everything together to pull in the actuals, report on them and marry them up with a coherent single plan
- An easy-to-use interface that makes things almost infallible in terms of accuracy, dimensionality and attributes
- Expand planning & forecasting into other departments