contents · fp&a analyst • story-tell with advanced visual analysis of performance drivers...

V9 Platform Overview

Contents

› Overview› Differentiators› Use cases› Solutions› Components› Features› Technology› Deployment› Roadmap

Market positioning

Metapraxis Empower Technology

The Metapraxis Way method

Customer case studies

The Metapraxis value proposition

› Category› Analyst reports

The Metapraxis value proposition

Metapraxis gives Tomorrow’s CFO trust in the numbers and control of performance.

The challenges for finance in applying analytics effectively

People

▪ Lack of consensus in the cross-functional leadership team on the organisation’s drivers of value

▪ Understanding of finance varies enormously across an organisation, undermining the clarity of business messages

▪ Engagement across the enterprise is challenging without a robust technology solution

Process

▪ Timeliness of insight matters more as the speed of market developments increases

▪ Manual Excel-driven processes are often the only way to plan, analyse and report in one consistent model

▪ Focus on business insights often comes second to manual “turn the handle” reporting processes

▪ One version of the truth is hard to achieve when there are many data sources and FP&A processes

Technology

▪ Data continues to grow rapidly, so determining what data really matters is key

▪ Technology investment is often focused on database programmes first and business insight second

▪ Businesses evolve, regularly changing structure, acquiring, divesting and launching new products

Metapraxis technology provides finance teams with a robust, automated platform for planning, forecasting, analysing and reporting, driving rapid improvements in:

What makes Metapraxis unique:

Business model based: contains an embedded and easy to adapt model of the business structure and value driver logic

Financial outcome focused: analytics applications are designed to provide control over business performance

Built-in intelligence: best practice visualisations, finance analyses and financial concepts built in

Metapraxis – Financial Analytics – Data Driven Success

The benefit is better decisions, faster, across the enterprise, providing control and improving performance.

The Metapraxis Way

approach

The stages of the Metapraxis Way

The Metapraxis Way approach helps you to design analytics applications that rapidly drive financial outcomes.

▪ Iterative approach provides flexibility to incorporate change and new learnings on the way to refine the solution▪ Focusing on what really matters in driving business performance enables rapid project delivery▪ The Business Performance Cycle ensures tangible business benefits are delivered

▪ Creation of an analysis or planning solution that enables key business questions to be answered and operational processes to be supported

▪ Usage scenarios and business processes incorporated into design▪ Best practice delivery of analysis, insight and visualisation

▪ Usage scenario definition▪ User engagement, training and change management to support usage scenarios

The Metapraxis goal is data driven success by accelerating and optimising the business performance cycle.

The Metapraxis goal

Metapraxis Empower

Technology Platform

As featured in:

Market Guide: Specialty Corporate Planning

Applications

Emerging Stars 2017

Accounting & Enterprise Software

A Strategic Corporate Performance Management (SCPM) platform, Empower is built for financial planning & analysis in large, complex businesses, replacing manual, Excel-based processes with an enterprise grade platform for planning, analysis and reporting applications.

Metapraxis Empower

Data lakes, warehouses,

databases

Enterprise applications (CRMs,

ERPs, Portals)

Cloud applications Internal and

external data

Excel, csv, txt data extracts

Data cubes

Board & Management Information

Planning and Scenario Modelling

Forecasting and Predictive Analysis

Prescriptive Business Insight

Desktop clientMulti-device HTML5 Web client, guided analysis and personal storyboards, Microsoft Office add-in, publishing and collaboration

Enterprise engagement

Dashboard and chart designer, data entry workflow, commentary manager, alerter service, security manager

Applicationconfiguration

MOLAP data cube, in-memory cache, data source connections, ETL automation and programming language interfaces

Data integration

Business dimensions, flexible hierarchies, intelligent dimensions, field-based analysis and consolidations

Business modelling

Business algorithm library, calculation engine, advanced visualisations, calculation frameworks and data analysis language support

Analytic transformation

The only product built for financial analytics and focused on helping large businesses control and manage future financial performance.

Why Metapraxis Empower?

1. Quality of implementation

Metapraxis Empower is implemented using the Metapraxis Way approach, which ensures that the business benefits of the analytics application are achieved.

Seven reasons why we are the leading analytics solution for the office of finance:

2. One version of the truth

Metapraxis Empower is the only product to enable planning, modelling, analysing and reporting with multiple data inputs.

3. Built-in finance understanding & advanced visualisation techniques

Metapraxis Empower is built for finance. It understands different business models and financial concepts, making implementation of quality applications quicker.

5. Controlled agility at enterprise scale

Applications are designed for enterprise use from the outset, in a controlled framework providing guided analysis to improve performance.

6. Speed to value

An iterative and agile approach to solution design and implementation allows the solution to provide value in weeks, not years, building trust quickly

7. Powerful Advanced Analytic capability

Enabling the finance teams of tomorrow to achieve better predictive and prescriptive insight using statistical analysis and learning algorithms, without coding.

4. Owned by finance and easily adapted to business model changes

Analysis is based on a robust multi-dimensional model of the business, linking sales and operational drivers with financial outcomes. The business model is easy to adapt to the ever-evolving business structure.

Metapraxis Empower delivers real benefit to the finance team far quicker than traditional Enterprise competitors, and at higher quality than other CPM/BI providers.

WPPDavid Barker, Group Financial Controller

“I cannot imagine managing this group, with all its complexity, without Metapraxis Empower.”

Metapraxis Empower use casesMetapraxis Empower is used by Board members, Executive teams, cross-function

business management and finance teams through our Empower products.

FP&A analyst

• Story-tell with advanced visual analysis of performance drivers

• Formulate plans and model scenarios

• Share and publish reports and dashboards

• Create new guided analyses, dashboards and reports

Board members

• Access reports and dashboards

• Investigate performance drivers

• Gain immediate insight

• Drive informed discussions

Executive team


• Investigate performance drivers

• Challenge issues

• Perform “what if?” scenarios

• Set targets and business goals

Business management


• Manage team performance

• Create and share own storyboards

• Perform “what if?” scenarios

• Contribute to the planning process

FP&A architect

• Model business structure changes

• Incorporate additional data sets

• Code-free development of FP&A solutions

Metapraxis Empower Platform Applications

Financial Analytic Apps

Empower enables the finance team to create complex financial analytic applications using the drag and drop designer with no coding required. These apps can simplify, automate and drive better engagement and productivity

around the strategic finance processes, with no involvement from IT.

▪ No coding or IT skills required

▪ Apps comprise a set of pages with built in navigation

▪ Drag and drop charts and instruments on the pages

▪ Pages can contain charts, tables, data entry, commentary entry, basic workflow, action buttons that trigger complex calculations, and many more

▪ Instruments and charts are highly configurable through settings in the App Designer

▪ Complete control over the layout, look and feel, and branding, with templates to drive consistency

Simple to create

▪ Business value focused

▪ Reuse current data cubes to drive data consistency

▪ Advanced analytics and reporting apps

▪ Pixel-perfect reports on-line and published as documents

▪ Secure access to insight

▪ Examples• Data collection apps for budgeting or planning

• Complex, real-time business modelling apps

• Activity Based Costing (ABC) models

• Cash flow models

• Automated report generation

Endless opportunitiesPlanning and Scenario

Modelling




Empower Board and MI solutions enable finance analysts to produce visual, guided analysis based on a consistent model of performance, incorporating commentary and context. The solutions are automatically updated with the latest data according to

the finance schedule and analysis is published in interactive web dashboards or reports in ppt, doc or pdf form.

Board and Management Information (MI)

Metapraxis Empower Applications

▪ Support for operational, strategic and analytic dashboards

▪ Multiple data sources, integrated into a multi-dimensional metadata layer

▪ ETL transformation

▪ Built-in data transformations and calculation frameworks to augment source data

▪ Best practice, clear, visual analyses

▪ Automated data updates

▪ Performance alerting

▪ Performance presented in context (versus market, historical performance, plan, budget, etc)

▪ Drill-down and click-through

▪ Transmits data focus across charts and instruments

▪ Transmits data focus between panels

▪ HTML5 web interface means you build once for multiple devices

Dashboards

▪ Build automatically updated reports

▪ Schedule & automate batch reporting

▪ Control of update and publish frequency: real time, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly

▪ Control the message with guided analysis walk-throughs

▪ Augment regular reports with topical “story telling” analysis

▪ Incorporation of commentary integrated from source data or added direct into Empower, saved against relevant points in the data cube

▪ MS Office integration

▪ Create own storyboards through personal dashboards

▪ Built-in link through to dashboard interaction

Reports

Empower planning solutions are based on an integrated model that links market and operational drivers with financial outcomes, and actuals with forecasts and plans. They support driver-based long term planning, scenario modelling and sensitivity analysis.

With real-time, visual impact analysis, our solutions effectively enable enterprise-wide engagement in the financial planning process.

Planning and Scenario Modelling


▪ Mode dimension enables many different cuts of data (plan 1, 2, 3, 4…., budget, actual, etc.)

▪ Different calculation frameworks can be applied to each mode to enable top-down targeting and bottom-up planning in the same model

▪ Enter data and see real-time impacts of changes

▪ Excel add-in for quick data modelling

▪ Submit plan inputs directly into the dashboard or integrate plans from other sources

▪ Provide context for the data with commentary stored at every data point

▪ ERP write back for plan output

▪ Immediate visual impact analysis

▪ Version control and auditing

▪ Configurable planning sign-off workflow

▪ Mobile/tablet/desktop data inputting

Planning

▪ Multi-user, multi-level, driver-based, “what-if” analysis

▪ Multiple calculation frameworks across a business model enable top-down & bottom-up impact analysis

▪ Real-time business structure changes

▪ Immediate in-meeting impact assessment across the entire business model

▪ Model across multiple currencies

▪ Set rules for cell validation (e.g. min/max capping, cell freezing, etc)

▪ Allocation modelling

▪ Advanced analytics for providing context through trends and surfacing exceptions

▪ Mobile/tablet/desktop data inputting

▪ Best practice impact analysis visualisations

Scenario modelling

Empower forecasting and predictive analytics solutions integrate budgets, actuals and forecasts in one automatically updated solution. The built-in trend analysis and visualisation techniques enable a clear understanding of likely future performance across the key dimensions of the business: product, geography, customer and function. Empower offers statistical and learning algorithm

frameworks, which can provide an advanced predictive capability when applied to larger data sets.



▪ Multi-approach forecasting in the same business model (manual input coupled with algorithmic approaches)

▪ Apply own assumptions in the business model to generate forecast

▪ Analyse forecasts across multiple business dimensions (BU, geography, product, customer, etc)

▪ Easily compare budgets, forecasts, actuals and plans, highlight variances and perform gap analysis

▪ Built-in trend analysis to provide forecast validation

▪ Provide context for the data with commentary stored at every data point

▪ Best practice visualisations:• Forecast accuracy analysis

• Forecast risk analysis

• Variance and gap analysis

Forecasting

▪ Business value focused approach

▪ Statistical and learning algorithm frameworks to generate advanced insight

▪ Use historical data and external drivers to identify:• Future sales and business performance

• Financial outcomes

• Early warning signs

• and many others …

Advanced Predictive Analytics

Empower business insight solutions enable the finance team to analyse actionable risks and opportunities across sales, profitability and cash flow, and to understand key trends within complex multi-dimensional businesses. Advanced analytics can then be applied

to larger data sets to identify the specific actions needed to help achieve business goals.



▪ Performance at breadth and depth of insight by linking applications, including:

• Market analysis

• Sales pipeline and performance analysis

• Customer analysis

• Product analysis

• People analysis

• Investment analysis (Capex & R&D planning)

• Treasury analysis (working capital & cash flow modelling)

Business insight

▪ Business value focused

▪ Rule-based exception reporting

▪ Highlight exceptions against performance model

▪ Learning algorithm-based outlier detection

▪ Perform impact analysis

▪ Opportunity identification analysis

▪ Alert outliers and opportunities to owners

▪ Track impact of actions taken over time

Advanced Prescriptive Analytics

Metapraxis Empower is a Strategic Corporate Performance Management (SCPM) product with a unique and powerful combination of components, specifically designed to support Financial Planning & Analysis in large, complex businesses.

Metapraxis Empower components

Data sources

Data integration

Business modelling

Enterpriseengagement

Data lakes, warehouses, databases

Enterprise applications (ERPs, CRMs, Ledgers, etc)

Cloudapplications

Excel, csv, txt data extracts

Data cubes

ETL Automation

Data sourceconnectors

Programming language interface

Business dimensions

Flexible hierarchies

Intelligentdimensions

B I

Consolidations

Multi device HTML5Web client

Desktop client

Guided analysis and personal storyboards

Publishing and collaboration

Microsoft Office add-in

MOLAPdata cube

In-memory cache

Calculation frameworks

Analytic transformation Business

algorithm libraryCalculation

engineAdvanced

visualisationsData analysis

language support

Application Configuration Commentary

managerData entry and

workflowDashboard and chart designer

Alerterservice

Securitymanager

Field-based analysis

Solution-driven data integration: extract, transform and load the data needed for the FP&A solutions from any source, on an automated basis, into an Empower data cube

Component features: Data integration

Programming language interface

The metadata and data are stored in a Multi-dimensional OLAP cube that optimises query response times to drive very fast dashboard performance. The dimensions of the cube model the business structures with data and text stored at the intersections. This ensures all user queries return the correct values, and avoids SQL issues in traditional databases or sematic layers that lead to doubling, cross products, etc. The cube is stored in Empower’s NoSQL database which can be encrypted. Support for other NoSQL databases: Oracle Berkeley DB, MongoDB (2018).

All metadata are stored in-memory for speed of access to dimensions, elements and attributes, which drives very fast dashboard response times. In 2018 a data cache will be added to enable even faster performance for real-time scenario planning across vast business models.

Empower comes with a number of easy to use connectors to link to metadata and data sources (see examples on the right). To create the dimensions of a data cube, metadata is synchronised with the source systems. This enables changes in structure of chart of accounts, products, business units, etc to be kept in line with the master source of data. Data is then added using built-in metadata mapping tables to enable many data sources to be integrated into a single coherent data cube.

For bespoke metadata and data loading processes with significant transformations, or data generation from base data sets, use the Empower ETL product. It supports complex transformations by streaming data through a processing engine that performs the data manipulations. The Empower ETL product also enables automation of the standard metadata synchronisation and data loading processes, as well as its bespoke transformations.

In the Empower ETL product, MPX Script is used to create transformations as well as loading and extraction routines. MPX Script includes a large function library for data and text manipulation, bulk data and text loading, calling external scripts such as Python, exporting metadata, data and text. MPX Script can also call Architect functions within an Empower cube to perform actions like setting the current time periods, running internal cube transforms, adding consolidation calculations, locking and unlocking data, building field-based structures, publishing to Office documents, etc

ETL Automation

Data source connectors

MOLAPdata cube

In-memory cache

Andothers …

Model your business across up to 8 core dimensions, e.g. business functions, customers, products, geographies, legal entities etc. Each dimension can have a set of field attributes to extend the information stored for each element of a dimension.

Aggregate up multiple hierarchies on each dimension. Quick & easy to set up and change through the drag and drop user interface. This enables immediate impact analysis of new structures and changes. This is used to model acquisitions, mergers, divestments, change business structure, etc

Intelligent dimensions contain the built-in business intelligence that drives the financial analytics. These are a continuous Time dimension, Time Transformations (e.g. YTD, Moving Annual Totals, Growth on last Year, etc), Modes (actuals, budgets, forecasts), Indicators (e.g. chart of accounts, KPIs, etc), and Currency.

Field-based analysis is an extension to the multi-dimensional analysis that enables dashboards to drill from the aggregated view of data (e.g. HR people counts, sales opportunity volumes, etc) to a filterable, detailed list view of the lowest level data, for in-depth analysis.

Consolidations can be configured for hierarchies in a dimension to aggregate the data. The consolidations and other calculations can be run ‘on-the-fly’ as the dashboard requests the data, or can be calculated and stored in advance for enhanced performance.

Controlled agility in business modelling: establish the fundamental business models that underpin the FP&A solutions and easily and quickly adapt them for market dynamics or business structure change.

Component features: Business modelling

Business dimensions

Flexiblehierarchies

Intelligent dimensions(time, mode, currency etc)

B

I

Consolidations

Field-based analysis

Metapraxis can provide generated self-tuning algorithms which differentiate between seasonality, trend and noise signals in financial data sets to provide enhanced insight into forward looking trends and performance outliers. These are proven to often provide more accurate and precise predictions than bottom-up forecasting.

Create new KPIs and line items with a vast collection of calculations. The calculations include all the expected standard functions as well as statistical functions for growth variances, seasonality trending, correlations, and many more. Calculations can look up and include data from other areas of the cube including different time series and modes (actuals, forecasts, etc).

Chart visualisations are focused on providing out-of-the-box analysis and insight and not just graphs. They are designed to communicate complex information, usually displaying many datasets simultaneously to provide context for the user. For example, the Single Trend compares budgets, actuals, forecasts and variance across a time series for a product or entity. The charts are industry-proven analyses based on the principles of Edward Tufte, Stephen Few and others.

Multiple calculation frameworks, which define how data is calculated in the cube, are held separately from the business model. This enables each mode (e.g. actuals, budgets, forecasts) to use a different framework. Thus, actuals can have different calculations to top-down budgets, or to bottom-up forecasts. Dashboard panels can then show comparisons of these modes, even though they are calculated differently.

A data focus in the cube can be piped into Python scripts to use machine learning techniques to generate predictions on future trends based on algorithms learned from historical data sets. This can be done through either supervised or unsupervised learning methods.

Inject real business insight into FP&A solutions: Metapraxis business algorithms provide trending and insight focused data transformations and calculations; apply academically developed and industry proven analyses, amplify these with your own functions, and

incorporate advanced analytics with data analysis programming languages.

Features: Analytic transformation

Calculation engine

Advanced visualisations

Data analysis language interface

Business algorithm library

Calculation frameworks

Dashboards consist of pages that make a financial analytics app. There is complete flexibility in how pages are designed and branded like a presentation, and use background templates. Charts and instruments (e.g. labels, buttons, selectors, graphics, etc) are very interactive and designed to provide guided analysis to take end users to the best analysis. Metadata from the data cube is used to drive consistency of appearance e.g. colours. Complex actions such as drill down, transmit focus, jump to other pages, save or calculate data, and many more, enhance the apps.

Data entry grids are set to a data focus and then capture end user data entry. It’s also possible to make labels editable for more visual data entry e.g. business driver models. Data can be saved instantly on entry, or multiple values saved with a button click. Entered data can have validation and use dashboard calculations to see ad hoc totals for instant user feedback. For what-if analysis, real-time recalculations and consolidations can be triggered within the cube. Empower also supports simple status-based workflow for flagging status of submissions.

Text can be stored against every data point in the data cubes. This enables users to enter commentary to provide context and explanations of specific points in the data. Commentary can also be entered against panels, and even set to capture comments from many users in a discussion thread. The commentary can be moderated and edited through the commentary manager.

Alerts may be sent when text is added to the data cube, or logs or files are written to. To trigger alerts for data changes or to highlight a data point with an alert, add the alert message to the same focus as the data in question and it will trigger an event in the alerting engine. Events can be filtered by type, user, date, etc. Events can trigger emails, SMS messages or RSS feeds. The message formats can be completely customised using templates and placeholders.

Access can be restricted to dashboards and then to specific pages. Security can also be applied to specific elements in the dimensions of a data cube. To be maintainable, user groups can be used to apply role-based security. Authentication to Empower Web can use a local source, SAML2, Active Directory, Active Directory Federated Services or Oauth. An optional two factor authentication service is provided by our partner Duo Security.

Tailored planning, forecasting, analysis and reporting solutions: design and configure the right FP&A solutions according to the Metapraxis Way, without coding, to help improve your business performance cycle.

Features: Application configuration

Commentary manager

Data entry and Work flow

Dashboard and chart designer

Alerterservice

Securitymanager

Empower Web is a lightweight portal that provides access to the dashboard analysis and more complex financial analytic apps through a web browser without requiring any plug-ins or extensions. It is based on the HTML5 Canvas, providing a rich interactive, visual experience. Empower Web also works on touch devices such as iPads and Microsoft Surfaces for accessing your analysis from anywhere.

Empower Desktop is installed on laptop and desktop computers to provide access to the dashboard analysis and more complex financial analytic apps. This approach can provide offline access to data cubes by having a local copy of the e_file NoSQL database.

Guided analysis dashboards are intuitive to use, requiring no training. Personal dashboards enable users to create their own storyboards from the standard dashboards by selecting specific analysis panels and foci and snapshotting into their own dashboards where they can be organised, viewed and published.

From within PowerPoint and Word, select analysis panels to embed in slides and documents. In Excel select a focus on the cube and browse the data in the worksheet for incorporation into other spreadsheets. An upgraded version of the Excel add-in will be available in 2018.

Users can publish standard and personal dashboards to PowerPoint, Word, Excel and PDF formats through Empower Web or Desktop. Bulk publishing enables analysis panels to be published for a set of different contexts e.g. all business units in a geography. Users can also share URL links to specific analysis in Empower Web that retain the context they were looking at.

Enterprise wide communication and collaboration: Empower Web and Empower Desktop provide access to guided analysis and personal dashboards, which can be automatically published as documents for sharing.

Features: Enterprise engagement

Multi device HTML5Web client

Desktop client

Guided analysis and personal dashboards

Microsoft Office add in

Publishing and collaboration

Architecture, infrastructure and deployment

Software Architecture

▪ Empower is built on Microsoft technologies

▪ Microsoft Visual C++ used for the core application code for maximum processing speed. This consists of the noSQLdatabase, algorithmic and calculation engines, metadata & data integration, metadata manager, dashboard designer, & desktop applications

▪ ASP.NET and C# used for the Empower Web portal and integrates with the core C++ application. This enables it to run on a standard Windows Server running IIS web server without requiring any other software.

▪ HTML5/TypeScript used for rendering interactive, visual outputs including dashboards, charts and the interactive parts of Empower Web to provide a browser experience without plug-ins or extensions

▪ Multiple languages are supported in Empower Web, and can be added in the dashboards by extending the data cube metadata to include translations for the dimensional elements

▪ Empower ETL can be written in MPX Script and Python which is also used for machine learning algorithms

▪ Data storage options, beyond Metapraxis NoSQL eFile solution are Oracle Berkeley DB, SQL server and MongoDB (2018)

▪ Authentication and security options:• Integration with Microsoft Active Directory

• Single-sign on options are AD Federation Services (ADFS), Oath, SAML2 and Windows Authentication

• Two-factor authentication, in which users are texted or called for a pin number, is available with our partner DuoSecurity

Desktop UI (Architect/Designer)

SQL Server

Web browser

Web pages- UI Framework- Dashboard UI

Web services- Dashboard UI- Licence certification

Dashboard business logic

Calculation engine

Metadata interface Data load Data save

Metadata access Data access

Security/encryption

e_File Oracle Berkeley

Web server

HTTP(S) HTTP(S)

Application server

Data layer


Deployment choices: Minimum SpecificationsDesktop Empower Empower Web

Processor Single Core CPU Dual Core CPU

Memory 4GB RAM 8GB RAM (dependent on number of

concurrent users and size of data

cube)

Disk space 400MB for installation, additional

space for data cubes

10GB for installation and Empower

data cubes sites, additional space

may be required depending on size

of data cubes

Operating

systems

Desktop:• Windows 7 (64-bit)

• Windows 10 (64-bit)

Server:• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (64-bit) – Web, Standard, Enterprise or Data

Center

• Windows Server 2012 R2 – Foundation, Essentials, Standard or Data Center

Web server Supporting components:

• ASP.NET 4.5

• IIS 7.5 or higher

• Internet Explorer v10 or higher

▪ Cloud • Metapraxis private cloud

• Microsoft Azure

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)

▪ Empower Web on premise

▪ Desktop


▪ Cloud (Metapraxis private cloud, Microsoft Azure, AWS)

▪ Empower Web on premise

▪ Desktop

Deployment choices:

Secure UK and US based Metapraxis community clouds

▪ Dedicated Metapraxis Cloud where clients can be confident their data is secure

▪ Dedicated, private servers, SAN storage, firewall and network

▪ Tier 3 Data Centres, ISO27001 certified

Optimum performance & scalability

▪ State of the art high spec cloud servers, storage units, firewalls and switches

▪ Your service can scale dynamically as you need to manage peaks in workload

▪ ADFS-enabled for SSO from your enterprise Active Directory service

Service and data loss protection

▪ Fully resilient architecture at the primary hosting facility

▪ Secondary data centre with standby Disaster Recovery with 15 min RPO and 60 min RTO

▪ Daily backups with retention of the last seven and also previous week, month, quarter and half year

Monitoring & support

▪ 24 x 7 application monitoring on each Empower Web instance

▪ 24 x 7 infrastructure monitoring of the VMs, host servers, network components and network

▪ 10 x 5 (UK time) availability of application and service support

Security and auditing

▪ User management to all cloud services managed centrally

▪ Single login for each user, for the relevant cloud services: FTP, Remote Desktop and Empower Web access, etc

▪ Provides user access reporting and auditing

Metapraxis private cloud:

Innovation roadmap: Tomorrow’s FP&A

Planning & Scenario Modelling

•Flex drivers to model “what-if” scenarios

• Instant, clear in-meeting impact analysis

•Sensitivity analysis

•Modelling of business structure changes

•Continually improving business driver model


•Automatically surface exceptions

•Visualise anomalies

•Prioritise focus on those areas with highest business value

•Predict potential impact

•Propose actions to improve performance


• Interactive web dashboards

•Guided and visual analysis

•Data and performance in context

•Financial intelligence built in

• Integrated commentary

•Automated data updates and scheduled reporting

Forecasting & Predictive Analytics

• Identification of likely future performance

•Visualisation of trends

•Analysis of forecast risk

• Integrated commentary

• Intelligent roll out of targets

•Consolidation of planning inputs

•Visual presentation of plan impact

Automated Decision Intelligence

•Escalate performance anomalies to the relevant people

•Drive discussion and capture actions

•Track escalations and actions and analyse results

•Automate delegated actions

The guiding principles of the Metapraxis Empower roadmap are focused on the FP&A function of tomorrow: advanced analytics, built in business intelligence and automation.

9.2V

9.2

No

tes

• Usability• New template application for creating new apps, and a new case study site “Sunrise Brands” that showcases many of the

unique features of Empower

• Simplified user interface for setting a data focus on a cube, which supports copy and pasting a focus, and transmitting focus between dashboard instruments and panels

• Drag-and-drop for reorganising dashboard panels similar to PowerPoint

• Provide more context when setting up editing calculations, including a version displaying long-names

• Dashboard actions have new in-dialog documentation to assist dashboard designers creating analytics apps

• Links to external systems can be duplicated and automatic data loading processes can explicitly specify which link to use

• Advanced Analysis• New navigation task pane allows viewing and updating of the data focus for a selected instrument in a dashboard without

opening the properties

• Enhanced virtual totals on charts now support ad-hoc and group selections

• Enhancements to dashboard metadata selectors now support multiple selections, automatic child-selection and more

• Empower ETL• Empower ETL now supports integrating ETL scripts with external tools including Python

• Supports parallel task management with new commands to start and then wait for a sub-process

• Other new features include enhanced find, improved error reporting and direct script injection

• Metadata and Data• The ADOMD filter now has a “quick mode”; the HFM filter now sports a hierarchy depth filter to speed up loads

• Performance improvements have boosted metadata synchronisation speed and loading of Generic csv files

• The Active Directory filter now supports importing users from multiple domains

• Improved logging records number of data and N/A values processed to aid validation checks

• Empower Web• Personal Dashboard can now include and publish panels from multiple Empower apps

• Jump to Panel pop up now opens much faster when displaying a large number of options

• New web service that returns the health of the underlying Empower sites

There are two releases of Metapraxis Empower every year. v9.2 was released in May 2017 and included these new features:

Market positioning and analyst commentary

Finance Enterprise Architecture

TPSTransaction

Processing Systems

ERPEnterprise Resource

Planning

EPMEnterprise

Performance Management

BIBusiness Intelligence

Analytics

Strategic CPM

Operational planningMat. & resource

planningHR & project

planning

Financial close Statutory reporting

Management reporting

Prescriptive analytics

Predictive analytics

Business modelling

Board and mgmt. reporting

Driver-based strategic planning

What-if and impact analysis

Strategic perf. management

Self-service reporting

Interactive dashboards

Top-down financial planning

Category Enterprise function

OperationalMDM

Data streams & event monitors

General ledger systems

Line of business applications

The application landscape is often fragmented, and master data is often siloed and inaccessible. High volume data sources are proliferating, and modern enterprises are adapting their day to day financial operations and processes to reflect these changes.

High value add planning activities are conducted throughout the enterprise, and platforms vary widely. Integration between these platforms is often weak or non-existent; consolidating insights and conducting impact analyses can be highly time-consuming.

All major ERP vendors supply or integrate with performance management applications, designed to provide a handle on operational complexity for the financial analyst. These systems operate at scale and high data volume; implementations remain arduous

Modern business intelligence tools provide centralised, robust summaries of key business data. In addition, many tools now include intuitive data visualization capabilities to help analysts identify correlations and trends in the data, and to facilitate sharing of insights.

Advanced analytics is the application of statistical techniques and emergent technology to the enterprise’s data, to discover deeper insights, make predictions, assess the impact of alternative courses of action, and generate recommendations for business decisions.

SCPM solutions support financial reporting, budgeting, planning and forecasting efforts. They provide a robust platform for the FP&A team, reducing manual processes and providing guided analysis and consistency in information to the organisation.

Data discovery

Data mining

Financial consolidation

Financial planning

Empower focus areas Third party vendor specialismshigh low

Metapraxis Empower category

Technology: Strategic Corporate Performance Management

• Focused on planning, forecasting, profitability and optimisation

Business category: financial and strategic analytics

▪ Focused on supporting the FP&A function of large complex businesses

Secondary technology category: BI

• Reports and dashboards • OLAP/ analysis• Platform integration• Development environment• Metadata management

Secondary technology category: Advanced Analytics

• Semi-autonomous analysis • Machine learning• Predictive/prescriptive analysis• Simulation• Forecasting and visualisation analysis

Analytics use cases for FP&A

Strategic business planning

Business driver analysis

Provides insight into the metrics that drive financial performance; presents a graphical display of KPI relationships, illustrating the links between indicators and outcomes

Multi-yearfinancial planning

Provides a platform for management to develop, test and refine strategic driver-based plans for the business

Enterprise performance insight

Allows a consolidated view of historical and forward-looking data from multiple data sources to support the planning process

Business modelling

Scenario modelling & sensitivity analysis

Allows the generation and comparison of financial outcome scenarios, based on ad-hoc, real-time adjustments to key business drivers and business structure changes

Predictive & prescriptive analytics

Deploys statistical techniques and learning algorithm frameworks to provide forecasts to inform decision-making and recommend actions

Benchmarking & market analysis

Allows the structuring and anonymization of external data and its integration with internal data sources, to enable peer group and other comparative analysis and investigation

Finance analytics

Board reportingUnites, standardises and communicates key business metrics in an accessible format, both online and offline, and integrates withthird-party presentation tools

Guided analysis Provides relevant analysis pathways to users, to increase speed to insight into revenue, profit and cashflow

Forecast analysis Provides a consistent framework to analyse and improve the accuracy of business performance forecasts


Dashboarding and visualisation

Provides finance-focussed visualisations of key business metrics, and presents them in highly customisable interactive dashboards

Commentary and collaboration

Supports end user commentary at a data point level, and preserves history; allows end users to comment on and share content

Story-boardingAllows analyst users to develop and export a personalised narrative, visualised using the analysis results, supported by a common data model and providing direct access to the underlying supporting data

Finance operations

Financial close & consolidation

Manages the financial close process, provides support to the financial workflow processes; controls and documents approval milestones for audit purposes

Statutory reporting & financial adjustments

Assembles, validates and delivers statutory reports to the quality and level of detail required to meet the organisation’s financial and legal reporting obligations; allows restatements and adjustments

Operational planning Provides support for detailed, bottom-up budgeting and planning processes

Meeting the FP&A challenge


Business modelling

Finance analytics


Business driver analysis

Multi-year financial planning

Enterprise performance insight

…Rapid appraisal and impacting of business plans

…Embedded statistical algorithms to drive forecast accuracy

…Integration of internal historical and external data sources

We provide…

…Analytics tied intuitively to drivers of business value

…Flexible planning by geography, business unit

…A financial forward look that is unified, flexible and validated

We provide…

...Actionable insight into drivers of business performance

…Guided analysis of key business drivers, yielding valuable insight

…Accurate forecasting backed by a robust, auditable framework

We provide…

…Intuitive visual analysis of key drivers and cause and effect

…Market-leading support for collaboration and commentary

…Personalised data presentation, bringing out key narrative

We provide…

Scenario and sensitivity analysis

Predictive & prescriptive analytics

Benchmarking & market analysis

Board reporting

Guided analysis

Forecast analysis

Dashboarding & visualisation

Commentary & collaboration

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

-Story-boarding

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

Technology landscape for FP&A

Enterprise BI CPM


Business driver analysis OBIEE Scorecard

ScorecardsAnalytics Cloud Val.Driver Tree

MS ExcelVisual

Analytics Model Map ✓

Multi-year financial planning Hyperion Strat.Finance

Planning Analytics

Strat.FinancialPlanning

Dynamics AX/GP

Financial Management

KliqPlan ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Enterprise performance insight Hyperion EPR Cloud

Cognos Disclo. Mgmt

SAP EPMDynamics

AX/GPFinancial

Management✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Business modelling

Scenario modelling, sensitivity analysis Crystal Ball with Excel

Cognos TM1 SAP BPC MS ExcelVisual

Analytics✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Predictive & prescriptive analytics Advanced Analytics

Prescriptive Analytics

Predictive Analytics

Analysis Services DM

Enterprise Miner

with RMachine Learning

BOARD BEAM ✓ ✓

Benchmarking & market analysis BI Cloud Service

CognosAnalytics

SAP LUMIRA Power BIVisual

AnalyticsQlik

DataMarket✓ ✓ ✓

DATA FAST TRACK

✓ ✓

Finance analytics

Board reporting OBIEEExecutive

ViewerSAP BO

DashboardsPower BI

DashboardsVisual

Analytics✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Guided analysis OBIEECognos

Analytics

Visual Analytics

Guided Analytics

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Forecast analysis Hyperion Profit.Mgmt

Planning Analytics

SAP PCMDynamics

AX/GPCost &

Profit.Mgmt✓ ✓ ✓ BOARD BEAM ✓ ✓

Management Reporting

Dashboarding and visualisation Data Visualisation

CognosAnalytics


Analytics✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Commentary and collaboration Fin. Statement

ReportingSAP BO Power BI Pro

Visual Analytics

QlikSense Story ✓ ✓ ✓

Story-boarding Data Visualisation

CognosAnalytics


AnalyticsQlikSense Story ✓ ✓ ✓

Finance operations

Financial close Hyperion FCM

CognosController

Financial Closing Cockpit

Dynamics 365 for Finance

Financial Management

Anaplan for

Fin.Cons.BOARD FC Consolidation

Statutory reporting & financial adjustments

e-Business Suite

CognosController

SAP ERPDynamics 365

for FinanceFinancial

Management

Anaplan for Fin.Cons.

BOARD FC

Operational planning IOPCognos

PlanningIntegrated

Bus. PlanningDynamics 365 for Operations

Dmd-driven Plan.&Opt.

KliqPlan Anaplan for

S&OP✓ ✓

Analyst commentary: Gartner

Analyst commentary: Tech Market View

Metapraxis operates in a niche space, providing FP&A teams with the tools to access key management information either at the office or on the fly. This is delivered via interactive dashboards for board and management reporting, and assists with strategic planning, scenario modelling and budgeting and forecasting. Any tools that can give execs access to better intelligence, faster and more efficiently, are going to be in high demand. Targeting this opportunity, Metapraxis offers its own Empower analytics software and consulting, to help FP&A teams 'analyse, visualise, report and plan’.

Empower effectively does away with spreadsheets and other DIY tools used by FP&A teams, supplementing this with predictive and prescriptive analytics, to rapidly uncover new trends and insights from the business data. It’s an approach which has had considerable success, growing at over 25% year on year for the last five years. Metapraxis has also achieved strong client relationships and high level of retention to date, underlining its focus on service quality and delivery execution. The Metapraxis Way methodology ensures the business benefit of the solutions are achieved.

Analyst commentary: Megabuyte

In an increasingly crowded data analytics software market, where large enterprise software players such as Microsoft also have a strong interest, finding a niche is becoming increasingly important for the smaller vendors. This can often be the case of focusing on a particular vertical but, for Metapraxis, it is its expertise in financial analysis and, in our view, the consulting component of its offering that provides an important degree of differentiation.

The company’s current journey really started when a new management team was put in place in 2011-2012. Since then, by focusing and energising the business, Metapraxis has managed to double revenues, while 2016 saw the company make important investments to accelerate the top line in its next growth phase. Certainly, the forecasted numbers for the year to June 2017 highlight that the rewards from these investments are starting to show through.

Client case studies

WPP is a world leader in marketing communications services. It has revenues of £12.2bn, a market capitalisation of £21.4bn, over 200,000 employees and is present in 113 countries.

Challenge

WPP is a large and complex group, composed of 30 operating companies, some of which are multi-billion pound companies in their own right. The constituent operating companies must balance the need to continue to improve their creative capabilities and reputation whilst achieving revenue growth, margin improvements and better return on capital employed. In order to react quickly to trends in a fast-moving global business environment, managers at both the group and key operating companies needed to be able to analyse financial and operational trends by geography, sector and client.

Solution

Metapraxis worked with the senior financial leadership of the group to build a detailed data model of the business in Metapraxis Empower, our strategic analytics solution. This is capable of reporting actual, budget and forecast performance on a like-for-like basis at any level of the business. We then worked closely with the finance community to define the analysis pathways necessary to highlight the actions needed to optimise performance and achieve strategic goals. By integrating these with the calculation and visualisation engine, we created a range of interactive dashboards giving managers rapid insight on key aspects of past and forecast performance.

Benefit

The dashboards and analysis framework allow both the group finance team and the operating company managers to quickly analyse the business to help improve performance and generate the reports required for the board and quarterly review meetings automatically. The range of different analyses is broad, but they are arranged so as to allow users to very quickly find potential sources of financial underperformance, and then connect these to key operational factors in order to improve working capital management, cost efficiency and margin. This allows risk and opportunity to be addressed as it develops, and means management can specify clear actions to improve performance quickly, responding to global economic and market changes and ultimately generating competitive advantage.

The Future

We are designing a prescriptive analytics solution that uses learning algorithms to surface early warningof risks or opportunities, enabling better decisions to take even earlier action to improve performance.

Case Study: Guided analysis and executive insight

WPPDavid Barker, Group Financial Controller

“I cannot imagine managing this group, with all its complexity, without Metapraxis Empower.”

Thomson Reuters is a global brand and one of the world’s largest media and information companies, providing intelligence, technology and human expertise to professionals in many industries worldwide. We were engaged by the Financial and Risk division – the largest in the company – which provides the market and economic data that companies rely on to optimise strategic and tactical decision-making.

Challenge

Thomson Reuters Financial and Risk sells information and data products into many industries worldwide. The company’s market is highly competitive, and the sheer size of the global sales team poses significant management challenges. With a relatively short sales cycle, this means that forecasting sales revenue even 1 – 6 months ahead is extremely challenging. Despite a considerable effort from the finance team, it still proved difficult to create a forecast accurate enough to form the basis of effective planning, analysis and decision making.

Solution

To tackle this challenge, Metapraxis analysed the preceding two years of sales pipeline data and consequent financial results to determine a set of predictive algorithms. We then developed these to take account of the effects of regional and cyclical variation, as well as short-term factors such as marketing initiatives. Once completed, these provided an accurate and dependable view of likely future performance. We then took the granular sales data on which the predictive model was based and integrated it within our data model of the organisation. This allowed management to reliably analyse future risks and opportunities, and determine the appropriate responses. With a visual dashboard reflecting the specific questions that the management wished to answer, finance could then work effectively with the sales team to help them define strategy and sales tactics according to the financial goals of the business.

Benefit

The Thomson Reuters forecasting solution has resulted in better insight, faster and, ultimately, improved decision-making at the company.Furthermore, the sales pipeline dashboard has allowed finance to work effectively with the sales team, and optimise performance in volume, value and conversion across the regions of Thomson Reuters’ Financial and Risk business.

The Future

We are currently working to augment the forecasting model with learning algorithms, to improve accuracy,speed, and depth of insight on an ongoing basis – and help keep Thomson Reuters ahead of the competition.

Case Study: Predictive analytics in action

Thomson ReutersSteve Leith, CFO Financial and Risk

“The Metapraxis sales forecast solution has given us greater confidence in likely future sales performance and provides our finance and sales teams with additional insight to help improve that performance.”

Newell Brands, formed from the combination of Newell Rubbermaid and Jarden Corporation, is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of quality consumer goods. When Newell Rubbermaid and Jarden brought together their portfolios of products and operating companies, the management team needed to rapidly gain understanding of how value was generated in the new company.

Challenge

Newell Rubbermaid already used Metapraxis’ Empower software to provide its executive performance reporting, so when the company acquired Jarden it was critical to establish visibility of financial performance across the combined organisation.

With a large number of operating companies, brands, and sub brands, a clear view of performance at all levels of the business is vital to the success of the organisation. Management needed a solution that could bring together data from across the business, present this on a consistent basis and allow them to explore the results at a granular level, whether by brand, by geography, or by operating company.

The acquisition of Jarden Corporation meant that two sets of financial data had to be integrated quickly, and on the same reporting basis, to provide management immediate insight into the performance of the new organisation and monitor this as the integration programme was delivered.

Solution

Metapraxis worked with the strategy and analytics team to create an executive dashboard that would allow the management team to rapidly answer key questions about the performance of the organisation and monitor synergies of the integration.

Critical attributes of the solution were the ability to report against the changing organisational structures in the business, add new levels of information within the hierarchy as more granular data became available and to quickly add new analysis as the company’s needs evolved.

Benefits

Metapraxis was able to implement the executive dashboard within the space of a month, acting as single, reliable source of financial information in an organisation coping with major and rapid change.

The dashboard automated much of the consolidation process, and allowed the executive team to quickly answer key questions about the performance of the business, both at the corporate level, and across the various dimensions of the business. This includes the ability to drill down to granular analysis of geographies, brands and operating companies.

Furthermore, the flexibility of the solution subsequently allowed the development and implementation of a portfolio model, to help management identify growth sectors, geographies and potential opportunities for acquisition.

Case Study: Rapid integration of executive and board reporting

WSP is one of the world’s leading professional services firms, focusing on construction, engineering and infrastructure. In an industry dealing with changing regulation, market uncertainty and reduced investment budgets, understanding the sales pipeline, managing cash and optimising margins are all crucial to success.

Challenge

The UK Finance Director contacted Metapraxis 15 months into a data warehousing project. As is often the case with these programmes, progress had been slow due to the amount of data available, a lack of focus on the relevant information and the challenge of representing the multi-dimensionality of the business. The Finance Director needed clear visibility of the right performance metrics and their drivers to improve profitability and cashflow in the business.

Solution

Metapraxis worked with the finance team and senior management to define a model of the business drivers, and used this to identify the data sets most relevant to the company’s key business goals. With the driver model in place, a solution was configured to integrate the relevant data sets, and create a series of performance management dashboards focused on providing analysis of the following areas:

▪ Profitability and margin

▪ Working capital and cashflow

▪ Order book and pipeline

▪ Capacity, utilisation and pricing

These outputs were made available as both interactive dashboards and published reports, to guide both board-level strategy and operational decision-making.

Benefit

The benefits of the initial engagement were immediate, and included identifying significant unbilled work, as well as substantial cost optimisation opportunities. The analysis dashboards gave both the board and the senior management the opportunity to better manage the team’s focus on prospects and client accounts, and to understand in more detail how debt and pipeline risk were affecting the business.

Following WSP’s merger with Parsons Brinckerhoff in 2015, the flexible underlying architecture and performance-orientated analysis allowed the joint management team of the new organisation to quickly get to grips with the performance of the newly merged business.

Case Study: Improving profitability and cashflow at WSP UK

WSP UKAndrew Noble, UK Finance Director

“Helps the whole business view the data intelligently, and make the right decisions”

Metapraxis Limited

St George’s House

5 St George’s Road

London SW19 4DR

United Kingdom

T: +44 (0)20 8451 2700

E: [email protected]

www.metapraxis.com

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