Athabasca College (AU), Canada’s Open College, is devoted to eradicating limitations that limit entry and success inside university-level examine and rising 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 making certain alignment with their aims required a collaborative built-in planning course of. The problem was that the annual planning and subsequent forecasting processes have been a significant 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 Resolution Help, was introduced on board to work with the workforce to satisfy two aims:
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 straightforward 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 programs. The end result was elevated belief and collaboration from all colleges and departments whereas rising the pace and agility of the monetary reporting, budgeting and forecasting processes.
Challenges confronted
Lack of transparency: The info for monetary reporting was nested inside completely different platforms with completely different ranges of entry. Funds homeowners struggled to grasp their budgets and had problem 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—akin to HR and payroll—was troublesome to entry, hindering monetary evaluation and decision-making. They weren’t capable of get insights into labour prices and make correct budgets and forecasts on considered one of their main price centres.
Earlier than implementing the answer, the monetary information was scattered throughout completely different platforms with various ranges of entry. Funds homeowners couldn’t simply entry their funds info, which brought about them to depend on particular people to elucidate reviews as a consequence of siloed information and complicated 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 previous system and Banner added to the complexity and time-consuming nature of the budgeting course of.
The journey begins: Improved funds visibility
After preliminary discussions with ActionKPI, Lengthy Huynh and the finance workforce noticed the chance to show the ability of built-in useful resource planning by IBM Planning Analytics (PA).
The main focus at first was on creating a variance and forecasting mannequin inside PA that mixed funds and precise information from supply programs in a user-friendly resolution accessible to numerous stakeholders throughout the college. In contrast to their previous system, PA enabled each day automated uploads from their ERP and supplied well timed entry to completely different reporting hierarchies and variances, and it gave the flexibility to drill down on transactional information. Funds homeowners may log in and examine 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 varied funds homeowners.
“It was such a foundational change to how we seemed on the budgets—from a handbook add of knowledge that may be a month previous or perhaps a quarter previous to each night time. It modified the pace at which we will make selections and see what is occurring.” — Lengthy Huynh
The second section: 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 price centres.
Beforehand, HR tightly guarded payroll info as a consequence of 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 price 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 out to be extra agile inside the decision-making course of.
“Payroll is the most important piece of the expense pie, and a radical and correct understanding of it’s required for an correct forecast. Now, we will forecast by every place and see the affect in-month and into the long run.” — Lengthy Huynh
To handle privateness and information safety considerations, the finance workforce collaborated with HR to find out the suitable wage element every funds proprietor may entry. Every supervisor can solely see wage particulars for workers inside their hierarchy and solely place numbers are proven moderately than names. This enables managers the transparency and element required to make knowledgeable selections whereas sustaining satisfactory 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 funds adjustments have been submitted as separate Excel information, resulting in collaboration challenges, model management points and handbook information entry.
ActionKPI built-in the funds and useful resource planning processes into IBM Planning Analytics (PA), permitting for a streamlined strategy. This additionally enabled a democratized course of the place funds homeowners collaborate with their Finance Enterprise Companions to replace their funds entries. This supported better possession and eradicated the method of funds homeowners sending numbers to finance and finance doing the entry.
Beforehand, inconsistent finance data throughout completely different colleges 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 programs—that made it doable.
“Earlier than, a variety of selections have been made behind closed doorways. Now, the college has moved to built-in planning, so it is extremely inclusive. Virtually each funds holder is concerned within the course of versus simply finance.” — Lengthy Huynh
Finance Enterprise Companions, assigned to every division, labored carefully with funds homeowners to show how PA could possibly be utilized to enter, monitor and visualize funds adjustments over time.
This integration fostered collaboration, transparency and knowledgeable monetary decision-making all through the college.
Via 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 supplied the required infrastructure for efficient collaboration and assist between finance and funds homeowners.
Conclusion
The journey to reinforce transparency and belief inside the college’s monetary processes resulted in vital 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 the direction of data-driven decision-making and collaboration.
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