Hunter Douglas Finds a Better Alternative to Budgeting
Introducing the Planning Analytics TM1
The new Planning Analytics TM1 budgeting tool was implemented to improve the operations of the Cerebos Australia Finance Department and provide greater transparency across the board.
Infocube worked with the project team at Cerebos on introduction of a new Planning Analytics TM1 system, which is leading the way for the future of Cerebos’ financial budgeting and forecasting processes.
“Planning Analytics TM1 is a budgeting tool that will improve the department’s approach to financial forecasting on an ongoing basis. It has changed the way we operate by introducing efficiencies and providing transparency”
Prabha says the manual and tedious nature of the spreadsheet processes, including the interfacing to their ERP system, was previously a major problem for the Finance Team.The Planning Analytics TM1 solution provided by Infocube was chosen on the basis of flexibility, cost, time to implement, performance and speed of consolidation. Prabha then said that “we chose Infocube because of the business focus they bring by being accountants with deep expertise in TM1”.
“We used to have hundreds of excel spreadsheets for each division of the company that we worked up to complete our budgeting, rolling forecast and long-range financial forecasting work within Cerebos Australia. It was a cumbersome and time-consuming process to consolidate data.”
For Suraj Khadgi, Business Analyst Manager for Food, the implementation of the Planning Analytics TM1 was about finding a more reliable way of doing business.
“We had to ask ourselves, how can we deliver budgets and forecast reports in a more efficient manner? The answer was that the TM1 could help reduce the amount of time spent updating data and checking outcomes,” Suraj says. “We brought in Infocube to help us understand and define our needs and then to build out our new budgeting and forecasting environment.”
Since its introduction, all financial budgeting and forecast data has been centralised into one large database. Prabha says anyone in the finance team can update the system real time and see the impacts of these changes in the results. The team also has total transparency on how all the numbers come together, to allow them to perform meaningful analysis.
“Planning Analytics has reduced the time required to complete annual business plans and financial forecasts by up to six weeks. Now we can use our time to analyse, challenge and validate forecast scenarios, generate reports at greater speeds and focus on adding value by working with our business partners to both improve and grow the business,” says Prabha.
More than ever, Prabha says there are increasing demands on finance resources for information and analysis, and this project has taken some pressure off the team and allowed more time to meet demands from the business.
“The need to forecast regularly in an efficient and robust manner required us to invest in better tools,” she says. “Now we have great transparency and have increased efficiency across the finance team and business,” she says.
Cerebos is a successful and innovative sauce, spice and coffee manufacturing organisation whose brands have been part of people’s lives in Australia and New Zealand for generations.
