business challenge:
The described situation pertains to a retail company that sought a better understanding of the direction of its financial situation and business operations. The company aimed to make the budgeting and forecasting process less labor-intensive while integrating financial and operational planning.
In fact, similar challenges arise across industries, making this case description applicable to the needs of many organizations 🧩.
With the assistance of IBM Planning Analytics with Watson, the company utilizes data more efficiently, simultaneously bringing financial processes closer together. Thanks to system compatibility, budgeting and forecasting now occur within a single solution, creating a clearer picture of sales and costs. The Planning Analytics solution also addressed shortages in the ERP system, such as reporting. The company revamped its profit and loss statement to meet the requirements of the parent company and built new models directly within IBM Planning Analytics. Organization employees can now leverage information from various sources more effectively. Elevated levels of information and planning processes, along with enhanced predictability, have contributed to the company’s ongoing growth 📈.
IBM Planning Analytics with Watson is like Excel on steroids, providing the ability to work within an Excel interface, but more importantly, streamlining and enhancing planning processes, ensuring all users have access to exactly the same data and can work with them, even across an infinite number of scenarios 📄.
results:
In this specific case, the implementation resulted in a clear view of sales 🛒 and costs. Cost control was improved 💰. Business planning is now aligned with corporate strategy. The time for executing the business planning process was shortened.
Seamless integration with Microsoft Excel was a key factor in driving higher user adoption, and the Planning Analytics Workspace facilitated teams in creating and utilizing corporate financial plans and forecasts.
Implementation goals are always set during the pre-implementation analysis. They are clear, so the outcome is expected. We are most delighted by the additional benefits that customers didn’t anticipate but have greatly benefited the organization 🎁.
These benefits are also present here, but if you would like to learn more, we invite you to have a conversation.
