Enterprise Planning

An Enterprise Planning platform is a finance managed solution that allows for accurate budgeting and forecasting. With an Enterprise Planning solution, your company can build detailed models to meet any financial or operating planning need.

Customize Models and Plans to Meet your Business Needs
• Sophisticated modeling capabilities let you create linked models that accurately reflect cross- functional interdependencies.
  
  
• Build models in days, not months. Import data definitions from various sources such as your ERP application.


• Change underlying business logic and principles quickly and easily. Compare alternatives and assess the impact in real time.


• Driver-based planning and flexible rolling forecasts provide greater visibility into likely operating performance.


• No programming languages or scripting required. Finance users can manage the application without IT support.


• Take advantage of rich Built-In Functions to add power and sophistication to your business models.

• Drill-down and multidimensional slicing-and-dicing help you explore data, evaluate models, and test assumptions in minutes. Quickly compare current performance with historical actuals and external benchmarks.


• "Break-back" automatically spreads high-level targets across any profile, such as previous-period actuals or projected seasonality, and across multiple dimensions such as products, customers, territories, or time periods.


• Unified view of plan data connects with key metrics and information so you can make decisions instead of debating definitions and accuracy.


• Eliminate unproductive activities such as tracking down numbers, fixing broken links, and debugging macros.

• User-friendly Web browser or familiar Microsoft Excel interface require minimal training and encourage participation, collaboration, and commitment.


• Single sign-on provides immediate access to linked, role-specific planning templates while pre-defined rules ensure that individuals see only the templates they require.


• Distributed architecture is optimized for collaborative performance, even with thousands of concurrent users across divisions and geographies.


• Complex calculations at the client give users instantaneous response and eliminate unnecessary traffic and server consumption during high-use periods.


• Users enter information in their own business language-not finance terms-and predefined formulas translate that into financial data such as gross revenue, net income, or earnings per share.


• Users can work offline. Plans and forecasts are automatically updated when they check back in.


• Online administration makes it easy to change data structures, user rights, model parameters, and more-24x7-without taking the system offline.


• Advanced personalization features blend planning and analysis to improve user productivity and accuracy and empower uses to take greater control of their view of the planning process. New features include: hierarchy support, sorting and hiding, freeze panes, user tab management, calendar selector, zoom, and word wrap.

• Cross-enterprise planning data stored in a single repository provides perpetually accurate information on demand.


• Synchronized enterprise plans link operational and financial plans to show the impact of operational change on financial performance.


• Dynamic linking of individual plan components in real time facilitates consistency and accuracy.


• Planners can attach files to a cell, model, or submission of a forecast.


• Quick commands allow users to modify plans and analyses, while an audit trail tracks all changes.


• Powerful business intelligence and scorecarding tools in IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence produce detailed, multi-dimensional reports and analyses.