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.
Modernizing FP&A Systems for Speed of Business Forecasting
More than half a century ago, innovator Jim Stowers, Jr. founded a small asset management firm in Kansas City, Missouri. His vision was to “create a company dedicated to integrity, performance and service all focused on one objective: helping investors reach their financial goals.” Today that firm is American Century Investments®, a leading global asset manager focused on delivering investment results and building long-term client relationships, while supporting research that can improve human health and save lives. The firm has more than 1,400 employees across eight offices worldwide.
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.
Rob Stilley
Vice President of Finance
Challenge
Create one comprehensive forecasting solution for multiple aspects of an asset management firm.
Solution
IBM Planning Analytics and Revelwood Lightspeed with custom models for forecasting:
- Assets Under Management (AUM)
- Compensation & Benefits
- Revenue
- Capital Expenditures (CapEx)
- The McKinsey Survey
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
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.