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Top 10 Steps for a Successful FPM Project

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We’ve created a list of the top 10 steps organizations should take for a successful financial performance management project. These steps were honed over more than two decades of experience designing and implementing financial performance management solutions based on IBM Analytics technologies. Essentially, these can also be considered best practices for financial performance management projects.

Before we go into the 10 steps, let’s take a look at today’s business environment. Years ago businesses, and senior management, were content to wait while technology project took months, or even years to be designed, implemented, rolled out, and eventually evaluated for success. That’s no longer an acceptable timeline. Sadly, some businesses will go out of business waiting years for an application that could make a meaningful difference for them. So it is now critical that many organizations think about speed to results and success at the beginning of a project. It’s with this mindset—and decades of experience, as well as focus on solving business problems, not just deploying cool technology for the sake of it—that we’ve developed this list.

  1. Get an executive sponsor
  2. Define the requirements
  3. Phase the project
  4. Take ownership
  5. Communicate throughout the project
  6. Involve IT
  7. Identify and train the various users
  8. Staff the implementation team with care
  9. Close the loop on the project
  10. Choose the right partner

We’ve expanded on these 10 steps in a whitepaper of the same title. If you’re interested in reading this whitepaper, feel free to download “Top 10 Steps for a Successful Financial Performance Management Implementation.”

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Revelwood Named Ingram Micro IBM Analytics Growth Partner of the Year

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Business travel can sometimes be more obligation than enjoyment. There’s always the chance of flight delays and other transportation snafus, long days, and often, the expectation of keeping up with your day job while being out of the office for work. But sometimes there’s that special business trip you look forward to!

That’s how we feel about the annual Ingram ICE event. “ICE” stands for Ingram Cognos Elite and it’s an exclusive program for IBM business partners who demonstrate expertise in selling IBM Cognos solutions. Every year, this event is held in a different location. This year, the ICE event took place in sunny Key Largo, Florida which is always a fun place to have a business trip. To make it even more exciting, this was the second year in a row that Revelwood was named the Ingram Micro IBM Analytics Growth Partner of the Year!

“Revelwood has done an incredible job growing their IBM analytics business through portfolio expansion and new client acquisition,” said David Hino, senior vendor business manager for IBM Software, Ingram Micro. “They are part of an elite group of Ingram Micro and IBM partners that many could learn from.”

Revelwood celebrates earning the Ingram Micro IBM Analytics Growth Partner of the Year award for 2016

From left to right: Vincent Zandvliet, global managing director for IBM/Ingram Partnership, IBM; Scott Zahl, vice president & general manager for Advanced Computing Division, Ingram Micro; Ken Wolf, CEO, Revelwood; Dave Hino, senior vendor business manager for IBM Software, Ingram Micro; Laurie Evans, worldwide channels leader for analytics, IBM.

Our CEO, Ken Wolf, was on-hand to accept the award, but it was earned by the entire Revelwood team. As Ken said in our press release, “Our team earned this award because we have continued to grow our established practice in financial and operational analytics, while also building a successful and award-winning practice in customer analytics and artificial intelligence.” As you can see from the photo, Ken had a great time at the event!

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IBM Cognos TM1 Streamlines Finance Activities at Rayonier

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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

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IBM Cognos TM1 for Capacity Planning in the REIT Industry

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We recently blogged about using IBM Cognos TM1 for capacity planning in both the oil & gas industry and in manufacturing. We also have a great client example of how TM1 can be used for capacity planning in the REIT industry.

Our client, a large real estate investment trust (REIT) company with several billion dollars in assets and Class A office space in most major U.S. cities needed a sophisticated solution to model out leases for its buildings and space, and to plan for lease expirations and renewals. The REIT wanted to perform complex capacity planning and revenue planning by identifying which regions and buildings are expected to gain capacity. This information would also allow the company to make strategic decisions about when and where to upgrade facilities, adjust rents and change terms of new leases.

With TM1, the REIT now has a capacity planning solution that enables them to analyze information by tenant, by lease and by building. It can perform analysis on expirations and renewals, in order to project current and future revenues based on both existing and anticipated conditions.

Read about capacity planning in the REIT industry.

 

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IBM Cognos TM1 for Capacity Planning in Manufacturing

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We recently blogged about capacity planning in the oil & gas industry using IBM Cognos TM1. In short, by using TM1 for capacity planning, a business can better understand how to maximize the capacity it has on hand, how to plan for expected increases and decreases in supply and demand, and how to capitalize on market opportunities to increase physical capacity at the most optimal times.

One of our clients, one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of roofing materials, with nearly 30 plants and a large variety of products created from different materials, wanted to optimize and create efficiencies for the products it manufacturers. They specifically wanted a capacity planning model that incorporates each plant, the multiple lines each plant runs, the products per line and per hour, and the shifts in the plant, and the length of those shifts.

With TM1, the manufacturer can now reallocate back in time if the data reports that a plant’s capacity has been exceeded. It can also report if a plant is currently exceeding capacity, or if a plant is performing under capacity. The capacity planning model provides red flags when it sees plants underperforming, enabling management to make decisions around whether they need to add additional shifts to those lines, or to move manufacturing of a specific product to a different plant.

Read about capacity planning in the manufacturing industry.

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Using IBM Cognos TM1 for Capacity Planning in the Oil & Gas Industry

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Capacity planning is the process of determining the production capacity needed by an organization to meet changing demands for its products. Most people think of IBM Cognos TM1 and automatically think just of financial planning. They think of how organizations of all types and kinds use TM1 for budgeting, planning, reporting and various other office of finance activities. But as we have learned in our decades of experience in working with TM1, there are many other ways companies can use TM1.

Just one of these ways is capacity planning. In short, by using TM1 for capacity planning, a business can better understand how to maximize the capacity it has on hand, how to plan for expected increases and decreases in supply and demand, and how to capitalize on market opportunities to increase physical capacity at the most optimal times.

One of our clients who needed a capacity planning solution is in the oil & gas industry. We built a solution for them that uses TM1 for operational performance management data on their storage of oil and gas. The company has contracts with its customers to store petroleum products to be transported. By having greater visibility into its tank utilization, the company can both be more efficient, and be more proactive by driving more revenue when there is spare capacity available.

Read about capacity planning in the oil & gas industry.

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IBM Cognos TM1 for Demand Planning in Manufacturing

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Demand planning can guide businesses to improve the accuracy of revenue forecasts, align inventory levels with peaks and troughs in demand, and enhance profitability for a given channel or product. Many of our clients who rely on IBM Cognos TM1 for financial planning, reporting and analysis have asked us to help them design and develop TM1-based demand planning applications.

We recently blogged about two examples of using IBM Cognos TM1 for demand planning. One was demand planning in the food and beverage industry and the other was in professional services.  Another client of who asked us to use TM1 for demand planning is a roofing materials company in the manufacturing industry.

They tasked us with creating a solution that would deliver comprehensive functionality for operational planning and analysis to help them optimize and create efficiencies for the products it manufactures and the associated shipping costs and resources required to get the products to the customers.

One aspect of this system is a volume and demand planning model that collects and analyzes data by product, by region and by customer. This gives the business the visibility needed to make decisions based on what to manufacture and where to manufacture it.

Read more about demand planning in the manufacturing industry.

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IBM Cognos TM1 for Demand Planning in Professional Services

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We recently shared a use case on how a client is using IBM Cognos TM1 for demand planning in the food and beverage industry. We also have a client in professional services who is using TM1 for demand planning. They are a market-leading business support solutions and services company that serves the majority of the top 100 global communication service providers.

Like most professional services firms, they make their money based on the number of billable hours its consultants service its clients. After we worked with them to build an IBM Cognos TM1-based financial planning and reporting application, they asked us if we could help us with demand planning, which would need to integrate with the overall financial planning application.

We built a demand planning application that enables the team to analyze demand by role, project, geography and status. Now, with this TM1-based demand planning application, the company’s line of business managers and senior executives can optimize staffing resources to better serve their clients.

Read more about demand planning in the professional services industry.

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IBM Cognos TM1 for Demand Planning in the Food and Beverage Industry

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Demand planning can guide businesses to improve the accuracy of revenue forecasts, align inventory levels with peaks and troughs in demand, and enhance profitability for a given channel or product. Many of our clients who rely on IBM Cognos TM1 for financial planning, reporting and analysis have asked us to help them design and develop TM1-based demand planning applications.

Here’s an example of how we used TM1 for demand planning in the food and beverage industry. In particular, we built this application for a craft brewery.

On one hand, what could be more fun than performing demand planning for the craft beer and cider industry? On the other hand, what could be more challenging? Beer distribution is not a simple model. Instead, the brewer distributes its products to a wholesaler, who sells the products to a retailer (a store, bar or restaurant). This particular brewer has an added complexity in that they issue their products with a “sell by” date, meaning any product remaining with the retailer or wholesaler after the “sell by” date needs to be returned to the brewer.

We worked with this craft brewer to design and develop a demand and sales planning solution using IBM Cognos TM1 integrated with IBM Cognos BI. We developed specific cubes that enable the brewer to track and analyze distribution, sales, depletions and returns by wholesaler. The system first tracks shipments to each wholesaler, then it records depletions (the products by wholesaler that have gone out to retail outlets). Lastly, the system tracks returns from the retailer to the wholesaler, and then back to the brewer.

Now, the brewer can make strategic decisions on where to invest marketing and sales support by wholesaler, identify top performers and develop strategies to keep them there.

Read more about demand planning in the food & beverage industry.

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