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It is no secret that analytics and planning projects are based on data. Typically projects involve wrangling some historical datasets, each with their own peculiarities, and then adding in some projection or prediction. Because data is essential, it is also a common stumbling block as business users consider beginning a new analytics and planning project.

QueBIT routinely works with clients that have either selected a poor-performing planning software tool, or who are suffering from the poor implementation of a good planning software tool. Both of these scenarios-- bad software and a bad implementation-- can dramatically hinder the cross-functional planning process and make improvement efforts less impactful and responsive. The challenge for a given client often then comes in recognizing which scenario applies to the situation at hand. Is this client underperforming because their software isn't a good fit? Or is it really about how the software is set up inside that particular company?

In the two decades since QueBIT was founded, we have often been puzzled by the slow pace of change in enterprise planning and performance management. As recently as 2019 we attended a CFO symposium, only to be surprised at how the case study presentations around revenue and expense planning, headcount and capital planning, and variance and profitability analysis were little different from spreadsheet-centric presentations we had seen ten years before, and how few finance organizations had embraced technology to support data extraction, data governance and modeling their businesses.

Upon releasing the new version of Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) 2.0.71 SC, IBM has also announced some important information regarding the use the of older versions for their Cloud clients. With the release of PAW version 2.0.56 in October 2020, IBM completely updated the PAW tool with a brand new user experience. Since that point all newer versions of PAW have used the new experience with all versions prior to the 2.0.56 upgrade labeled as Planning Analytics Workspace Classic.

With evolving regulatory requirements, ever growing product lines and no shortage of legal entities, allocations are critical for every insurance organization’s financial reporting process. An effective allocation process always starts with a good design, and in this blog post I will outline several best practices to consider.

Most organizations realized in 2020 that their traditional, manual planning processes were inadequate at best, and a liability at worst. QueBIT and its software partners specialize in helping clients move from disconnected, siloed planning into a collaborative and agile planning process turbocharged by automation and smart use of AI. This future state is Extended Planning & Analysis – or xP&A.

Anaplan offers various ways of integrating data into the platform. The decision of how to import and export data is dependent on the context surrounding the use case. Who is going to own the data integration process moving forward? What technical know-how do they currently possess? What does your data architecture consist of? Or to be more granular, will the source data need to be transformed prior to import, what kinds of ETL tools are in use, what is the volume of the data sources, and are they consisting of on-premises, software as a service (SaaS), or both? How much automation will be necessary to perform the integration? The choice of integration should be made according to these complexities, and the skill set inherent to the user base. If you or your business are looking to streamline the process of importing and exporting data with Anaplan but aren’t sure which of the many data integration options are right for you: read on!

I am not a Finance guy, but as a Product Manager at QueBIT, I am part of a team that spends equal if not more time fretting over and fine-tuning User Experience (UX) than building new functionality into our software offerings. One of the things that I’ve found revealing in my years at QueBIT is how the same is true in Finance and how crucial the UX is to some of our customers. Conveying financial information in a way that is visually engaging, tells a story and drives meaningful action, requires empathy, a good “eye” and a bit of fine art.

Oracle and SAP have long dominated the market for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, the software companies use to run their businesses. Simply put, ERP software can manage all day-to-day business activities including accounting, procurement, invoicing, supply chain operations, workforce management and more. These days, having an ERP system to keep track of all these everyday business transactions represents a “bare minimum” technology investment for any company.