Success Stories

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

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

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

Challenge

Solution

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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