financial planning in the cloud, part 1

iBusiness Solutions, Inc.

7300 Metro Blvd, Suite 590

Edina, MN 55439

www.ibusiness-solutions.biz

Budgeting and Forecasting in the Cloud

Live webinar presented by

iBusiness Solutions & Host Analytics

iBusiness Solutions, Inc. www.ibusiness-solutions.biz. Copyright. All rights reserved. 2

Today’s Session

Using cloud-based applications to capture, manage and analyze financial data

Applying best practices to cloud-based technology

Leveraging industry best practices to automate budgeting and planning and enable

forecasting, dashboarding, scorecarding and more

Moving away from disconnected spreadsheets

Introduction to Host Analytics, the industry's first cloud-based corporate performance

management (CPM) suite

Use cases for cloud-based financial budgeting, planning and reporting


Today’s Speakers

Timothy Brands, CEO – iBusiness Solutions

Founder and Chief Executive Officer of iBusiness Solutions

Created The intelligent Business ProgramTM, a package of tools,

techniques, best practices, and best-in-class examples for creating

innovative technology-based solutions to help organization

communicate what has happened, influence what is happening,

and anticipate what will happen next.

Keri Brooke, VP Marketing – Host Analytics

Keri manages Host Analytics’ marketing activities. She oversees

product marketing, brand management, market strategy, lead

generation, public relations, and analyst relations.

Keri comes to Host Analytics with 15 years in the CPM space. She

started in Consulting Services management in Hyperion UK, moved

into product marketing in 1998 and made a move to the Hyperion US

HQ in 2000.


The intelligent BusinessTM

Using cloud-based technologies to capture, manage, and analyze data


Challenges remain the same

Moving to Cloud-based budgeting and planning requires

Discipline

A plan

A strategy

Collaboration of all affected parties

Top-down approach

Clear goals and objectives

Defined outcomes

Technology alone cannot solve strategy-related problems

Garbage in will always = Garbage out


The Vision ExpanderTM


The Strategic NavigatorTM


The Data TransformerTM


The Business Hierarchy ModelTM


The Technology AcceleratorsTM


What’s Wrong With Spreadsheets?

Not built for a process

Prone to error

Not built for collaboration

Unstructured documentation

Invisible dependencies

Lack of flexibility

Little modularity support

No separation of data to end-user interface

Changing is major surgery

Too much time!

…The list goes on...


….Too much time on non value

added activities

Effect

Working in data isolation

Latency

No collaboration

Business trends and market

movements not driving decisions

Missed opportunities

No contingency planning


What that meant for technology

Spreadsheets

Finance analytics and client server

Web based applications

Combination of CPM and BI

Combination ERP, CPM and BI

A new technology emerges as mainstream

iBusiness Solutions, Inc.

7300 Metro Blvd, Suite 590

Edina, MN 55439

www.ibusiness-solutions.biz

Introduction to Cloud-Based Budgeting and Forecasting


Evolution of Financial Applications

Dashboards and variance

reports

Financial Consolidation and

Iterations

Budgets, Aggregation and version control

1st generation




reports


Iterations


Scenario Modeling

1st generation 2nd generation

Basic Excel or

Early Finance Applications




reports


Iterations


Strategic Decisions

Scenario Modeling

Functional/ Operational Decisions

Tailored Excel

Applications

or

Finance

Applications 2.0

1st generation 2nd generation 3rd generation

Basic Excel or




Predictability Improvements

Productivity Improvements

Profit Improvements


reports


Iterations


Strategic Decisions

Scenario Modeling

Functional/ Operational Decisions

Tailored Excel

Applications

or

Finance

Applications 2.0

1st generation 2nd generation 3rd generation

Basic Excel or



Bringing Value

Table stakes, cost focused efficiencies

Improving service levels

Value add benefits


Cost Efficiencies

Lower overhead

Reduced IT involvement

Reduced costs of implementation

Quick implementation times


Improve service levels

Process improvements

Expanding the footprint of the finance processes

….

….without the increase in infrastructure

Putting rigor into those financial processes


Driving value

Profit Improvements

Driving fact based decision making throughout the organization

Providing access to large groups of people

More operational data being fed into finance

Using “smart” content like benchmarks


Bridging the gap

Performance

Right features

Driven by vendor Technology

agnostic

Customization

Ease

Of Use

Benchmarks

Best people on the right problems

Integration of efforts and avoid silos

Vendor agnostic

Enabled by cloud

Low ongoing costs

Low initial costs

Driven by vendor Helped by cloud Access to latest functionality


What can happen if you get this right…

Source Aberdeen Group 2010 --- No of Respondents 159


Challenges

Late and inconsistent excel data

Long, long meetings

Adjustments mid-year very hard

Sales forecasting accuracy

Solution

A single source of consistent data

Budgeting now takes half the time

What-if scenarios and ad-hoc reporting

12 month rolling forecasts

Results

Confidence in their data

Meetings are dedicated to decision-making

Self service reporting

Finance understands the model behind the numbers

No involvement from in-house IT staff

“Before, we were lucky just to get the numbers. With Host Analytics we get the numbers and the whole story.”

“Budget meetings are now about the business, not about the integrity of information.”

- Mark Cohen, Vice President of Finance and IT, Thule Vehicle Accessories North America

Thule


A Partial List of Companies Creating Value

http://www.lifetimefitness.com/


The D.C.O. ModelTM

Session 3:

• Technology Accelerators

• Cloud-based reporting

demonstration

March 30th at 1PM CST


Thank you!

Questions? [email protected]

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]




financial planning in the cloud, part 1

Economy & Finance

forecastingibusiness

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garbage outibusiness

cloudbased budgeting

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