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Financial Performance Management

My Mission to Transform FP&A

April 11, 2017 by Brian Combs Leave a Comment

News and events

After spending almost 13 years in various global, domestic and corporate FP&A roles at Hertz Rent-a-Car, I’m nearly one year into my position as a managing consultant at Revelwood. The turning of the year, if you will, into year two at Revelwood, gives me an opportunity to reflect on the state of FP&A in many organizations today.

When I first started at Hertz, I was a participant in the company’s Advanced Management Development Program. This was a six-to-nine month rotational “fast track” program that had me doing assignments with city managers, fleet operations, back office management, employee relations and customer service. The goal was that when I ultimately ended up working in the finance department, I’d have a “bigger” view of the organization than one that was just comprised of “numbers.” That experience helped shape my career, as it gave me a true appreciation of the importance of people and process. Throughout my FP&A career, I focused on the upstream and downstream impacts of my actions.  It is difficult to add value without an understanding of the entire process. This is the essence of a FP&A professional.

At the beginning of my career, FP&A (then Business Planning) was all about numbers. It was largely reactive and, while many hours were (are) consumed working on it, the value it added, and still adds, could, and can, sometimes be questioned. After you gather the data, create/format/validate the fancy Excel charts, and complete multiple iterations, it is too late to enact change in any meaningful way. But that’s changing, and changing drastically, in many organizations.

What’s really exciting today is that FP&A is emerging as a proactive team that is an integral part of the business. As they gather data from all the siloed departments and units, they are being recognized as the single source of a potentially complete view of what’s going on in the organization, what the cause and effects of various actions are, and where strategic changes can be made for maximum impact. In fact, according to research from The Hackett Group, “more than 90 percent of finance organizations believe that digital transformation will fundamentally change the way finance services are delivered, including the way it serves internal and external customers, suppliers and partners, as well as the talent and leadership roles it must develop.”

That probably sounds very lofty and hard to achieve in many places – especially in established businesses with codified processes. But I believe it is achievable, and that it starts with examining, understanding, and changing (where needed) processes. Not simply for the sake of change itself, but because of the importance of continuous improvement and its impact on the business and the team.

I believe the FP&A group can and should be the most empowered group within an organization. When they have access to analyze the right data, they can uncover the root cause of not just finance issues, but operational issues and stumbling blocks. They are able to do this since they understand the synergies between various aspects of operations, and how process changes or process inertia create ripple effects or institutional bottlenecks. Armed with this knowledge, they can create and execute corrective action plans.

So you might ask, why would this passion lead me to a company known for its stellar reputation as an implementation and consulting firm for IBM analytics technology? After all, I’ve not said a single thing about technology.

Analytics technology is the enabler for the transformation of FP&A. Here at Revelwood, we’re working with our clients to help them make this transformation. And it’s certainly an exciting time for all of us. I look forward to speaking with you about your processes and how Revelwood can help.

Home » Financial Performance Management » Page 45

Filed Under: News & Events Tagged With: Budgeting, Financial Performance Management, Planning & Reporting

Revenue Recognition’s Technical Aspects Make Adoption Difficult

March 14, 2017 by Stu Fisher Leave a Comment

News & Events

This is a guest blog post by RGP Director of Client Service, Stuart Fisher.

It’s official. The adoption of ASC 606 – the new Revenue Recognition accounting standard, is not going to be fun. Forty percent of finance professionals surveyed by Intaact would rather stand in line at the DMV than go through the process of preparing and implementing the new standard. The technical aspects, which are enough to make anyone cringe, raise many questions. Among them:

  1. How many performance obligations do you have?
  2. What are the impacts of contract modifications?
  3. Will you recognize revenue over time or at a specific point in time? Which recognition method is appropriate for your organization?
  4. What is your stand-alone selling price?
  5. Are you the principal or the agent?

Beyond these technical uncertainties, plenty of implementation challenges may affect a number of functions within your organization. For example … How many contracts need to be reviewed? Are current systems sufficient to accommodate the new requirements? How will reporting disclosures be affected? Is the data needed to comply available, and if so, is it available to the appropriate users? How will internal controls be revised or implemented to accommodate the need for new data and calculations? Who in your organization has the time and skillset to meet the aforementioned needs?

While there are a number of activities we would rather do, implementing the new revenue recognition standard is something many of us will need to do. In fact, the SEC has publicly stated that they are expecting more robust disclosures in upcoming filings. Through impact assessments, companies have learned how the standard will affect their organizations and will be sharing this information in their filings to update investors. To facilitate transparency and the timely absorption of the information by market participants, the SEC suggest incorporating an impact discussion into investor outreach activities.

If you have any questions about how your company should handle the new standard or how RGP can help you, please contact me at 973-401-2565 or stuart.fisher@rgp.com.

Stuart Fisher is the director of client service at RGP, a global consulting firm that provides advice and execution to clients of all shapes and sizes in more than 70 countries—including 87 of the Fortune 100. With a Big Four heritage, its 3,000+ accomplished professionals offer deep expertise across a broad range of integrated services. RGP provides its clients the agility to expand capacity and increase capability. And the support they rely on to help them achieve all that’s possible.

Home » Financial Performance Management » Page 45

Filed Under: News & Events Tagged With: Analytics, Budgeting, Financial Performance Management, Planning & Reporting

Introducing IBM Planning Analytics Local

December 15, 2016 by John Pra Sisto Leave a Comment

News & Events

IBM Planning Analytics Local, the convergence of TM1 on-premise with Planning Analytics on the cloud is now available! This new release brings many of the great enhancements and performance improvements that IBM has been making in the cloud environment available to on-premise TM1 customers.

I recently hosted a webinar with Dan Bernatchez, our FPM practice leader and Chief Solutions Architect for TM1, to review the new features of the solution and provided a live demo of Planning Analytics Local.

One highlight of the webinar included Dan showcasing Planning Analytics Workspace, which is a completely transformed user experience. This new “face” of TM1 provides a rich, interactive workspace that is visual, intuitive, insightful, social and mobile.

Dan also explained how Planning Analytics Local uses hierarchies for deeper analysis of TM1 data. Essentially it turns attributes into virtual dimensions, saving RAM, increasing query performance and adding flexibility. This enables users to have smaller, faster cubes, to introduce hierarchies to queries as needed, and to do dimension versioning.

Since Planning Analytics Workspace is the one new component that comes at an additional cost, IBM is offering a special 75% discount for existing TM1 customers who purchase it before year-end 2016. For information on this pricing deal, contact me and I can help you.

This webinar was the first in a three-part series showcasing IBM Planning Analytics. Stay tuned for the dates and topics of the next two webinars coming in early 2017.

Home » Financial Performance Management » Page 45

Filed Under: News & Events, Videos Tagged With: Budgeting, Financial Performance Management, IBM Planning Analytics, Planning & Reporting, TM1

Revenue Recognition Is More Than a Finance & Accounting Issue

November 30, 2016 by Stu Fisher Leave a Comment

News & Events

This is a guest blog post by RGP Director of Client Service, Stuart Fisher.

On May 28, 2014, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), also known as the Boards, issued converged final revenue recognition standards, which eliminate most industry-specific GAAP and significantly changed revenue recognition. Now that the one year delay proposed by the Boards is finalized, the standards will become effective in fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2017 (calendar year 2018) for public U.S. companies, which is essentially the same for companies reporting under IFRS. Private companies are allowed a one-year delay.

Implementing these changes will be complex and time consuming. In a recent survey RGP conducted, 82% of respondents said they anticipate implementation will be somewhat challenging to very challenging. Even companies not expecting drastic changes to the amount or timing of revenue recognition will likely be affected by necessary changes in documentation and information systems to track new data requirements and support the additional disclosures, estimates, and increased use of management judgment.

Our Revenue Recognition experts offer the following tips to companies affected by the new standards:

  1. Assess the impact:
    Organizations can avoid costly implementation issues and/or delays by assessing the cross-functional impacts that ASC 606 and IFRS 15 will have on their operations. Understanding what the enterprise-wide impacts are early on can help develop a clear roadmap with appropriate actions that are needed for a smooth implementation.
  2. Select a transition method:
    If you haven’t already done so, now is the time to choose a transition method and implement a plan to capture contract data. The full retrospective method is a popular choice because it is preferred by the investor community.
  3. Evaluate significant revenue streams and key contracts:
    Identifying required changes, and the specific business units where these changes may have the greatest impact, will be a necessary step.
  4. Establish a Project Management Office (PMO):
    Revenue recognition implementation doesn’t have to be a burden. It can be an opportunity to open communication among departments and business units, and to improve processes. Ensuring your revenue recognition project is efficiently managed and successfully executed leads to sustainable results.
  5. Determine the impact on your systems and data:
    From sales compensation to closing the books, your company depends on critical systems and accurate data. The system and data impacts may be greater than anticipated.
  6. Establish a suitable contract management process:
    Analyzing current requirements, and creating a contract management process that fits the needs of your organization, will help reduce risk and improve efficiency.

Implementing the new revenue recognition standard is a complex and time-consuming initiative. If you have any questions about how your company should handle the new standard or how RGP can help you, please contact me at 973-401-2565 or stuart.fisher@rgp.com.

Stuart Fisher is the director of client service at RGP, a multinational consulting firm that helps leaders execute internal initiatives. RGP was founded in 1996 within a Big Four accounting firm and today it is a publicly traded company with more than 3,300 professionals, annually serving over 1,800 clients from 70 global locations.

Home » Financial Performance Management » Page 45

Filed Under: News & Events Tagged With: Budgeting, Financial Performance Management, Planning & Reporting

Understanding Gartner’s Magic Quadrants for Analytics: An Expert’s Take, Part 3

October 6, 2016 by Cris Payne Leave a Comment

News & Events

In two recent blog posts (Gartner Magic Quadrants, Part 1 and Part 2), we provided some clarity around the various Magic Quadrants issued by Gartner in the analytics and business intelligence market. In this post we want to go a little deeper into two specific reports. Earlier this year, Gartner released its new 2016 Magic Quadrant for Advanced Analytics Platforms—the de facto reference standard for buyers evaluating advanced analytics packages. This report is not to be confused with their similarly named 2016 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics Platforms report. While both analytic reports cover analytic technologies whose lines sometimes intersect and eventually may converge in the future, there still are very clear distinctions separating the two technology categories.

Further clarifying the differences between the two reports, Gartner defines advanced analytics as “the analysis of all kinds of data using sophisticated quantitative methods (such as statistics, descriptive and predictive data mining, machine learning, simulation and optimization) to produce insight that traditional approaches to business intelligence (BI)—such as query and reporting—are unlikely to discover.” There are also typically chronologic boundaries to what is produced in each analytic application: BI typically addresses data exploration and visualization of current or historical happenings, whereas advanced analytics, specifically predictive and prescriptive analytics using sophisticated algorithms, can pronounce future outcomes in terms of propensities or likelihoods—strong natural tendencies to occur, or predicted outcomes rooted in probability, respectively. In other words, BI is more rearview mirror looking, and advanced analytics looks forward.

This year’s Magic Quadrant for Advanced Analytics Platforms included:

  • 2 Challengers: SAP, Angoss
  • 5 Leaders: SAS, IBM, KNIME, RapidMiner, Dell
  • 5 Niche Players: FICO, Lavastorm, Megaputer, Prognoz, Accenture
  • 4 Visionaries: Alteryx, Predixion Software, Alpine Data

                                                         Source: Gartner (February 2016)


While Gartner evaluates these vendors on two specific dimensions—ability to execute and completeness of vision—and many of the niche players often address only specific use cases, the market research report underemphasizes how fully these vendors can accommodate a comprehensive analytic ecosystem. It does not specifically address how easy these vendors integrate with either their own complementary products, or with other third-party vendors.

As a consultant and a former leader of an advanced analytics department in a large industry environment, I can assure you that integration and deployment of advanced analytics are almost of parallel difficulty to the actual analytics being developed. How many of these vendors easily pair with analytic decision management offerings, master data management solutions, BI tools, visualization engines, Hadoop systems, marketing automation systems, etc.? These things are hidden behind the results.

An absence of disclosure on the specific vendor component scores makes it difficult to evaluate a true operational fit within an organization and within the analytic goals set forth by potential consumer.

So what does this mean for organizations?

Organizations must take into consideration what their larger goals are for their analytic programs. Consultants who have spent many years developing analytic solutions, both as industry practitioners and consultants, can often help organizations weed through the hype and get to the practical solutions that yield tangible results.

Revelwood has chosen to partner with IBM to develop innovative analytic solutions, not because they appear in the leader quadrant, but because they offer the most comprehensive analytic ecosystem to support an organization of any size. They also are putting more research and development than any other company—nearly $5.5 billion in the last 12 months alone.

I encourage any organization to utilize an analytics consultancy firm that has deep experience in developing solutions that produce results and can last in an enterprise environment.

Home » Financial Performance Management » Page 45

Filed Under: News & Events Tagged With: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Science, Financial Performance Management, Predictive Analytics

Revelwood Labs – How We’re Adding Value to your Analytics Investment

October 5, 2016 by Ken Wolf Leave a Comment

News & Events

For over two decades, Revelwood has been offering leading edge, high value TM1 and Cognos Express products, solutions and services in the FPM marketplace. Up until a year ago, all of these offerings were managed under a single organization—Revelwood. Given the changing dynamics in the market, with a greater emphasis on self-service products and industry-specific solutions, Revelwood has restructured itself and launched a separate product division called Revelwood Labs. This allows us to put more focus, ownership and strategic emphasis on new products and solutions that meet our clients’ needs and those of the ever-expanding analytics market space.

This year, for example, we relaunched our former BPM Suite accelerator as an all new cloud-based solution (also offered on-premise) that leverages the best of Planning Analytics Workspace, TM1 Web, CAFÉ and Watson Analytics, yet still powered by the industry leading TM1 multidimensional database engine. Called Lightspeed, this solution helps our clients get up and running faster and smarter, with pre-built FP&A functionality and embedded best practices from hundreds of TM1 implementations over the years.

Also in 2016, we launched our first ever mobile app called Quantum. It’s designed to untether TM1 administrators from their desktops and allow them to access and manage their TM1 environments anytime, from anywhere. Quantum launched on the Android platform at IBM Vision back in May and comes out on the iOS platform for Apple devices next week. The iOS beta launch is by invitation only, so please contact us if you are interested. It’s incredibly convenient, easy to use and totally FREE!

More importantly, Revelwood Labs has developed a roadmap that will enable us to continue developing products and solutions that add significant value to our customers’ analytic agendas. Right now we are working on several industry solutions that incorporate the use of TM1, SPSS, Watson Analytics and other IBM analytic product offerings. We are also working on a next generation solution to Revelwood’s Performance Toolkit that incorporates the “best of” functionality from Dynamo!, Data Manager and Application Manager for the CAFÉ environment.

There is much to look forward to from Revelwood in the months and years to come. We are confident that the creation of Revelwood Labs will help us help you get more value and results from your IBM analytic investments.

Home » Financial Performance Management » Page 45

Filed Under: News & Events Tagged With: Analytics, Data Science, Dynamo, Financial Performance Management, Lightspeed Planning & Reporting, Predictive Analytics, Quantum, Revelwood

Understanding Gartner’s Magic Quadrants, Part 2

October 4, 2016 by Lisa Minneci Leave a Comment

News & Events

In a recent blog post we talked about Gartner’s view on the Corporate Performance Management market, and why they retired the Magic Quadrant for Corporate Performance Management Suites in favor of two magic quadrants. They are the Magic Quadrant for Financial Corporate Performance Management and the Magic Quadrant for Strategic Corporate Performance Management.

Our clients and our team have found a lot of valuable information in two additional magic quadrants from Gartner. The first is the Magic Quadrant for Advanced Analytics Platforms. This report, by Lisa Kart, Gareth Herschel, Alexander Linden and Jim Hare, defines advanced analytics as “the analysis of all kinds of data using sophisticated quantitative methods (such as statistics, descriptive and predictive data mining, machine learning, simulation and optimization) to produce insights that traditional approaches to business intelligence (BI) – such as query and reporting – are unlikely to discover.”

In some ways, analytics can seem like “all things to all people.” But in reality, different types of analytics are being used today by a wide range of organizations. And they are seeing tangible results from those analytic applications. In fact, Gartner reports that “by 2018, more than half of large organizations globally will compete using advanced analytics and proprietary algorithms, causing the disruption of entire industries.” Let that sink in a minute. In approximately two years, analytics will play such a strategic role in some organizations that it has the potential to disrupt entire industries. Whether you are working in a large organization, or in a mid-sized organization, now is the time to evaluate and assess what predictive analytics and advanced analytics can do for you.

The second Magic Quadrant in this space is the Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms by Josh Parenteau, Rita Sallam, Cindi Howson, Joao Tapadinhas, Kurt Schlegel, and Thomas Oestreich. In the report, Gartner outlines the shift in buying power for BI applications from IT to the business as a result of the evolution of self-service analytics. The authors write, “this significant shift has accelerated dramatically in recent years, and has finally reached a tipping point that requires a new perspective on the BI and analytics Magic Quadrant and the underlying BI platform definition – to better align with the rapidly evolving buyer and seller dynamics in this complex market.” The report also presents five use cases and 14 critical capabilities of a BI and analytics platform.

Clearly, there’s no lack of analysis available on vendors and solutions in the overall analytics space. In fact, just determining which Magic Quadrants are relevant for your project can be a challenge. We hope these posts provide some clarity and direction for you.

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Filed Under: News & Events Tagged With: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Science, Financial Performance Management, Predictive Analytics

How will Brexit Impact your Financial Planning & Analysis

August 23, 2016 by Lisa Minneci Leave a Comment

News & Events

It’s been several weeks since the historic and disruptive Brexit vote, where the UK voted yes to a referendum deciding to leave the European Union. Stock markets around the world immediately had a knee-jerk reaction, and there has been speculation that banks—particularly U.S. banks—will move their London operations to other locations. As the dust around Brexit is settling and the world is beginning to comprehend and work through what a UK exit from the EU looks like and how and when it will happen. We sat down with Don Cole and Lee Lazarow at Revelwood to understand how Brexit could impact your Fx conversions.

First, let’s look at how Fx currencies are handled in typical ERP systems. Since these are tools that are modeled to reflect a company’s operating structure, many companies handle their Fx conversions as simply conversion rate times base currency. This provides a one-dimensional view of the data and provides no insight into the true financial impact.

Revelwood takes a different approach when working with our clients on Fx conversions. We develop a variety of conversions to provide real insight into the operating results. This approach enables companies to correctly analyze whether a loss in a region was the result of currency fluctuations, or actually sales or service losses. These conversions include each of the respective currencies (e.g. USD, EUR and GBP) at the following rates:

  • Current Year Actual Rate
  • Current Year Budget Rate
  • Current Year Forecast Rate
  • Prior Year Actual Rate
  • Prior Year Budget Rate

With a system such as described above in place, companies can easily adjust their planning assumptions to reflect the fall of the pound sterling since the Brexit vote. This level of visibility can help companies to understand what changes they can and should make to their current assumptions and/or sales strategies to make up for the financial loss due to the dropping currency rates, or how to at least avoid a big surprise at the end of the fiscal year.

In the longer term, once Brexit happens, there is likely to be major changes to pricing in the UK, and possibly in other regions. One of the key aspects of Brexit is it will decouple the UK market from the EU market, meaning that the UK will need to renegotiate many trade agreements with other nations. And while the UK is still a large nation, in theory it will have less bargaining power than that of the EU. But, that is still many years out. In the meantime, now is the time to re-examine how your company handles Fx conversions and make some changes to better manage the financial fluctuations in the world market.

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Filed Under: News & Events Tagged With: Analytics, Budgeting, Financial Performance Management, Planning & Reporting

Life Lessons Learned as an Intern at Revelwood

August 16, 2016 by Revelwood Leave a Comment

News & Events

This is a guest blog post by Revelwood intern, Zachary Vinik.

When I told friends and family that I was interning at an established business they all made jokes. “You are just going to organize papers and deliver coffee to everyone.” My mom even told me that in her first internship she had to highlight any English words in hundreds of pages of computer code. I’ve never been happier that everyone else was wrong.

Walking into my first office job I pictured what I’ve seen on TV. A boss that is either too strict or too aloof. Coworkers that spend their time complaining about work. A college student that is treated like trash. Revelwood took those expectations and flipped them upside down. I found a boss that allowed me to go in my own independent direction, noticed when I took a wrong turn, and then subtly pushed me back on the right path. I found coworkers that didn’t just complain about work, but coworkers who seem to actually enjoy what they are doing. And I, the college student, was treated like a valuable member of the team.

The type of camaraderie that exists at Revelwood can only really be understood by being here, but I can attempt to show it in two stories.

My second day at Revelwood, I was doing basic Financial Performance Management (FPM) training. It was just Brian (a coworker) and me in the room. After many hours of basic training we were going over FPM job listings, and at the top of every listing there was a single line, “ad hoc reporting”. When it showed up on the first one I asked a quick question about it, Brian gave a quicker answer, and we moved on. When it showed up on the second one, I made a snarky comment and Brian smiled a little. “Ad hoc reporting” showed up on every listing that we looked at that day. By the end of it I could not read the word “ad hoc” without Brian and I sharing a laugh about it. Even today, whenever I see “ad hoc” on any document, I smile.

The second half of my internship, I was given a programming assignment. The first thought that popped in my head was something like, “Oh god. I’ve never done anything past high school assignments. How the hell am I supposed to do this?” I wore my worry on my sleeve, and Rob came over to the office I was using that day and took an interest in what I was doing. My original thought process was to lie and say something like, “This project isn’t that bad,” but I didn’t. I was honest with how difficult I thought the project was. Rob looked at me and instantly gave me relief. “Just try the best you can. Any result is a good result.” Everyone gave me help on the project when I needed it and in the end I exceeded both Rob’s, and my own, expectations.

Revelwood has these five core values, and when I was introduced to them within my first 15 minutes of stepping into the office, I ignored them. All I wanted to do was move onto, in my opinion, my actual training. Ending the internship has shown me that those first 15 minutes were the most important training I received while here. Everyone here is passionate, does the right thing, takes initiative, focuses on the team, and cares. Hopefully, with what I’ve learned here at Revelwood I will be able to take these core values wherever I eventually go.

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Filed Under: News & Events Tagged With: Analytics, Financial Performance Management, Revelwood

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