Financial Planning In The Cloud, Part 1

Budgeting and Forecasting in the Cloud
Live webinar presented by
iBusiness Solutions & Host Analytics

iBusiness Solutions, Inc.
7300 Metro Blvd, Suite 590
Edina, MN 55439
www.ibusiness-solutions.biz

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

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

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...


Effect
 Working in data isolation
 Latency
 No collaboration
 Business trends and market
movements not driving decisions
 Missed opportunities
 No contingency planning

….Too much time on non value
added activities


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


Introduction to Cloud-Based Budgeting and Forecasting

iBusiness Solutions, Inc.
7300 Metro Blvd, Suite 590
Edina, MN 55439
www.ibusiness-solutions.biz

Evolution of Financial Applications

Dashboards
and variance
reports

Financial
Consolidation and
Iterations

Budgets,
Aggregation and
version control

1st generation



Scenario
Modeling

Dashboards
and variance
reports
Basic Excel Financial
or Consolidation and
Early Finance Iterations
Applications
Budgets,
Aggregation and
version control

1st generation 2nd generation



Functional/
Operational
Decisions

Strategic
Decisions

Scenario
Modeling

Dashboards
and variance
reports

Basic Excel Tailored Excel Financial
or Applications Consolidation and
Early Finance or Iterations
Applications
Finance
Applications 2.0 Budgets,
Aggregation and
version control

1st generation 2nd generation 3rd generation



Functional/
Operational
Decisions Profit
Improvements
Strategic
Decisions

Scenario
Modeling
Predictability
Dashboards
Improvements
and variance
reports
Basic Excel Tailored Excel Financial
or Applications Consolidation and
Early Finance Iterations
Applications or
Finance Productivity
Applications 2.0 Budgets, Improvements
Aggregation and
version control

1st generation 2nd generation 3rd generation


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
Ease
Of Use

Customization
Driven by vendor
Technology
agnostic Performance

Right features
Driven by vendor
Helped by cloud Access to latest functionality

Low ongoing costs

Low initial costs

Benchmarks
Vendor
agnostic Best people on the right problems
Enabled by cloud
Integration of efforts and avoid silos


What can happen if you get this right…

Source Aberdeen Group 2010 --- No of Respondents 159


Thule
Challenges
 Late and inconsistent excel data
“Before, we were lucky just to  Long, long meetings
get the numbers. With Host  Adjustments mid-year very hard
Analytics we get the numbers
 Sales forecasting accuracy
and the whole story.”
Solution
“Budget meetings are now
about the business, not about  A single source of consistent data
the integrity of information.”  Budgeting now takes half the time
 What-if scenarios and ad-hoc reporting
- Mark Cohen, Vice President  12 month rolling forecasts
of Finance and IT, Thule Results
Vehicle Accessories North  Confidence in their data
America  Meetings are dedicated to decision-making
 Self service reporting
 Finance understands the model behind the
numbers
 No involvement from in-house IT staff


A Partial List of Companies Creating Value


The D.C.O. ModelTM

Session 3:
• Technology Accelerators

• Cloud-based reporting
demonstration

March 30th at 1PM CST


Thank you!

Questions?
tbrands@ibusiness-solutions.com

kbrooke@hostanalytics.com


Financial Planning In The Cloud, Part 1

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