The work of the finance team lies at the heart of developing your business strategy.
Yet most finance teams still spend much of their time on manual, spreadsheet-based processes – collecting, consolidating and validating data. As a result, there isn’t enough time for fundamental value-added analysis and planning and the resultant business strategy is not as robust as it ought to be.
Our consultancy, alongside the implementation of IBM® Planning Analytics, will release your finance team from manual processes, enabling them to spend more time modelling and analysing different business approaches. IBM® Planning Analytics will facilitate and streamline these activities in numerous ways:
Sandbox facility
Planning is all about ‘what-if’ analysis and testing certain scenarios, ideally using live data in isolation in a development environment. IBM® Planning Analytics fully supports this and allows for immediate update throughout the entire system with one click when you are ready to make a change.
Agility vs manual approach
IBM® Planning Analytics facilitates a central repository approach where any individual change is seen by the entire user base. If an Excel user interface works best for your business this can be incorporated through an integrated tool (PAX) which allows you to work in IBM® Planning Analytics via an Excel front end. Through this approach it is much easier for your company to reach a single version of the truth when approaching your data.
Fluid system
From data entering the system through to the production of reports and dashboards, rules and processes retain the same logic for your whole organisation. The in-memory engine promotes real-time updates of the planning system, resulting in everyone receiving information as they need it. This reduces the reliance on downstream completion to be able to move forward with tasks.
Dashboards
Previously the domain of Business Intelligence products, IBM® Planning Analytics not only generates reports but also features interactive visualisation tools such as dashboards and balanced scorecards. This advances the data-driven aspect of decision making for budgeting and forecasting through the creation of user-friendly resources for use by all roles within your organisation.
This enhanced planning capability will allow your finance team to guide your business towards a stronger future. Contact us for more details on how IBM® Planning Analytics can improve your planning process.