Being Agile When It Counts Most
Written by: Eric Doherty
Rapid deployment of financial technology has been at the forefront of digital-first organizations. The issues with legacy technologies have never been more apparent in the light of this year’s rapidly changing environment’s financial impact. How long will it take to build a usable application that handles the company’s needs? How fast can our users adapt and use the new tool? How will this tool help management make the proper decisions? How can being on the cloud help our organization?
Questions like these are asked again and again by organizations looking to increase agility, reduce operating costs and dynamically adjust to the environment. Now, the pressure that comes with our ever changing, highly volatile environment makes the risk of being unprepared and inflexible ever more relevant. Initiatives that may have been of high importance a few months ago may get pushed to the wayside while industries try to understand how to cope with this new way of life for their customers and employees.
Fortunately for Anaplan users, these challenges can be overcome. We have been able to deploy Financial Impact models very rapidly, most within just a few weeks instead of months. For example, we have created a FP&A Acceleration Platform. Our user-friendly platform ensures acceptance is easily obtained. This model can easily help with headcount planning, forecasting what-if scenarios, capex planning and approval and more. We have helped people not only stay afloat during this difficult first half of the year, but they are thriving and making better financial decisions.
Data that management is using in decision making can effortlessly be pivoted and drilled into to quickly find meaning behind the numbers. Cloud based financial applications are showing their full potential in the wake of remote work becoming not just the norm but a necessity to many organizations. Needs are fulfilled in providing a tool that allows collaborative interaction between remote employees, no matter the distance of their physical locations.
The second half of this year could be as volatile as the first. We are implementing models faster, using more consultative experience and giving clients the ability to make choices that can better sustain their company’s future. As illustrated above, organizations use Anaplan to deal with this time of uncertainty in ways only Anaplan can: dynamic and agile while reducing cost and effort.
About the Author:
Eric Doherty is a Senior Consultant for Allitix based in Dallas, TX with 15 years in the Finance/Account field. Eight of these years in consulting. He is an EPM Consultant with a diverse background in accounting and finance. Provides clients successful outcomes rooted in several years of financial roles from Sox/Compliance Auditor and Financial Analyst to Plant Accounting Manager. Mr. Doherty quickly understands client requirements and translates them into models, input templates, reports and dashboards that consistently exceed client expectations. Exceptional at challenging requirements and design assumptions to drive better solutions. Contributes at all levels within a project, from driving design to becoming involved in detailed project implementation. Highly successful at working collaboratively with client team members in a broad spectrum of industries across functional lines.
As a consultant, he spends his time designing, developing, and implementing enterprise performance management solutions to match client specifications while leading the client to innovative solutions. He has worked comprehensively with a variety of clients, ranging from mid-sized to Fortune 500 companies.