Athabasca College (AU), Canada’s Open College, is devoted to eradicating limitations that limit entry and success inside university-level examine and growing equality of academic alternatives for grownup learners worldwide.
To assist their mission, AU outlined their “Think about” Technique, which was a five-year plan outlining strategic precedence outcomes for the establishment. Underpinning the execution and guaranteeing alignment with their goals required a collaborative built-in planning course of. The problem was that the annual planning and subsequent forecasting processes have been a serious impediment as a result of lack of transparency and entry to related well timed info for decision-making, leading to a scarcity of belief and collaboration. To repair this, Lengthy Huynh, Director of Choice Assist, was introduced on board to work with the workforce to satisfy two goals:
Roll out a Finance Enterprise Associate (FBP) Program, which centered on constructing a workforce of finance people who may collaborate with college members and division heads on monetary/enterprise plans, reworking finance into advisors to the enterprise versus compilers and producers of reviews.
Streamline the built-in planning and forecasting course of, making it simple for customers to entry info, monitor variances in spend and initiatives and allow college members to re-forecast and in the end personal their numbers.
To help with this transformation, AU started working with us at ActionKPI—a Efficiency Administration Consultancy specializing in built-in useful resource planning—to assist outline a roadmap and phased strategy to re-architecting their planning processes and methods. The end result was elevated belief and collaboration from all schools and departments whereas growing the velocity and agility of the monetary reporting, budgeting and forecasting processes.
Challenges confronted
Lack of transparency: The information for monetary reporting was nested inside completely different platforms with completely different ranges of entry. Price range homeowners struggled to know their budgets and had issue accessing related info, understanding variances all through the month and main as much as the quarter.
Guide and siloed budgeting: The budgeting course of relied on an antiquated system that was not user-friendly and disconnected from the primary ERP system. Budgets needed to be manually uploaded, making it difficult to combine actuals and forecasts.
Restricted entry to information: Some information—similar to HR and payroll—was tough to entry, hindering monetary evaluation and decision-making. They weren’t in a position to get insights into labour prices and make correct budgets and forecasts on one among their main value centres.
Earlier than implementing the answer, the monetary information was scattered throughout completely different platforms with various ranges of entry. Price range homeowners couldn’t simply entry their finances info, which precipitated them to depend on particular people to clarify reviews resulting from siloed information and sophisticated nuances.
Moreover, Athabasca College’s budgeting course of was hindered by an unintuitive system that operated independently from their ERP system, Banner. Guide uploads and a scarcity of integration between their outdated system and Banner added to the complexity and time-consuming nature of the budgeting course of.
The journey begins: Improved finances visibility
After preliminary discussions with ActionKPI, Lengthy Huynh and the finance workforce noticed the chance to display the ability of built-in useful resource planning by IBM Planning Analytics (PA).
The main target at first was on creating a variance and forecasting mannequin inside PA that mixed finances and precise information from supply methods in a user-friendly answer accessible to varied stakeholders throughout the college. In contrast to their outdated system, PA enabled each day automated uploads from their ERP and offered well timed entry to completely different reporting hierarchies and variances, and it gave the power to drill down on transactional information. Price range homeowners may log in and consider their budgets at any time, clearly understanding their monetary place and empowering them to actively take part within the budgeting course of and take corrective motion to fulfill targets. This enchancment considerably enhanced transparency, belief and accountability amongst their numerous finances homeowners.
“It was such a foundational change to how we regarded on the budgets—from a handbook add of information that could be a month outdated or perhaps a quarter outdated to each evening. It modified the velocity at which we are able to make choices and see what is going on.” — Lengthy Huynh
The second part: Workforce and HR integration
As soon as the preliminary mannequin was constructed and information from Banner was built-in immediately with IBM Planning Analytics (PA), the main target turned to HR (particularly workforce) to raised perceive one of many college’s main value centres.
Beforehand, HR tightly guarded payroll info resulting from privateness necessities, leading to restricted entry and inadequate granularity.
To beat this problem, AU and ActionKPI developed a workforce variance mannequin inside PA that encompassed the FTEs and positions on the college, versus staff. Precise college payroll information by place was included into the mannequin, offering visibility into labour prices, emptiness value financial savings and headcount, whereas nonetheless sustaining information safety and privateness.
Having this workforce element allowed college members and departments to revise their FTE plans and subsequent labour prices, making a rolling forecast. This not solely improved the forecast accuracy however enabled AU to turn into extra agile inside the decision-making course of.
“Payroll is the largest piece of the expense pie, and an intensive and correct understanding of it’s required for an correct forecast. Now, we are able to forecast by every place and see the influence in-month and into the long run.” — Lengthy Huynh
To deal with privateness and information safety issues, the finance workforce collaborated with HR to find out the suitable wage element every finances proprietor may entry. Every supervisor can solely see wage particulars for workers inside their hierarchy and solely place numbers are proven reasonably than names. This permits managers the transparency and element required to make knowledgeable choices whereas sustaining sufficient safety and privateness.
Built-in useful resource planning: A holistic strategy
The journey continued with a deal with built-in useful resource planning. The college aimed to transition from closed-door decision-making to inclusive, built-in useful resource planning that concerned stakeholders from throughout the group.
Previous to this initiative, useful resource plans and proposed finances modifications have been submitted as separate Excel information, resulting in collaboration challenges, model management points and handbook information entry.
ActionKPI built-in the finances and useful resource planning processes into IBM Planning Analytics (PA), permitting for a streamlined strategy. This additionally enabled a democratized course of the place finances homeowners collaborate with their Finance Enterprise Companions to replace their finances entries. This supported better possession and eradicated the method of finances homeowners sending numbers to finance and finance doing the entry.
Beforehand, inconsistent finance data throughout completely different schools and departments led to poor or inaccurate forecasting and budgeting practices.
The rollout of the Finance Enterprise Associate Program contributed to the success of the built-in useful resource planning course of by offering personalised finance assist and advisory to every division. It was the monetary acumen, ardour for customer support and data-driven decision-making abilities of the FBP workforce—mixed with the streamlined planning processes and methods—that made it attainable.
“Earlier than, loads of choices have been made behind closed doorways. Now, the college has moved to built-in planning, so it is vitally inclusive. Nearly each finances holder is concerned within the course of versus simply finance.” — Lengthy Huynh
Finance Enterprise Companions, assigned to every division, labored carefully with finances homeowners to display how PA might be utilized to enter, monitor and visualize finances modifications over time.
This integration fostered collaboration, transparency and knowledgeable monetary decision-making all through the college.
By this mannequin, Athabasca College achieved improved forecasting consistency and high quality. The FBP mannequin wouldn’t have been profitable with out the implementation of PA, because it offered the required infrastructure for efficient collaboration and assist between finance and finances homeowners.
Conclusion
The journey to reinforce transparency and belief inside the college’s monetary processes resulted in important enhancements.
By implementing IBM Planning Analytics and integrating budgets, actuals and useful resource planning, the college achieved higher visibility, streamlined processes and elevated stakeholder involvement.
The initiatives undertaken by Lengthy and his workforce not solely reworked monetary decision-making but additionally contributed to a cultural shift in direction of data-driven decision-making and collaboration.
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