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
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
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3. 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.
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4. The intelligent BusinessTM
Using cloud-based technologies to capture, manage, and analyze data
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5. 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
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12. 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...
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13. 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
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14. 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
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15. Introduction to Cloud-Based Budgeting and Forecasting
iBusiness Solutions, Inc.
7300 Metro Blvd, Suite 590
Edina, MN 55439
www.ibusiness-solutions.biz
16. Evolution of Financial Applications
Dashboards
and variance
reports
Financial
Consolidation and
Iterations
Budgets,
Aggregation and
version control
1st generation
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17. Evolution of Financial Applications
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
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18. Evolution of Financial Applications
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
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19. Evolution of Financial Applications
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
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20. Bringing Value
Table stakes, cost focused efficiencies
Improving service levels
Value add benefits
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21. Cost Efficiencies
Lower overhead
Reduced IT involvement
Reduced costs of implementation
Quick implementation times
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22. Improve service levels
Process improvements
Expanding the footprint of the finance processes
….
….without the increase in infrastructure
Putting rigor into those financial processes
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23. 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
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24. 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
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25. What can happen if you get this right…
Source Aberdeen Group 2010 --- No of Respondents 159
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26. 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
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27. A Partial List of Companies Creating Value
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29. The D.C.O. ModelTM
Session 3:
• Technology Accelerators
• Cloud-based reporting
demonstration
March 30th at 1PM CST
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30. Thank you!
Questions?
tbrands@ibusiness-solutions.com
kbrooke@hostanalytics.com
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