Standard Life, a life assurance, pensions, and
long-term savings company, wanted to
streamline budget planning and reporting. Its
current Excel-based solution was slow,
lacked version control, and exposed the
organization to compliance risk.
The solution integrated upstream data from
Oracle and SAP, and stringent user
permissions were set up. After rolling out
budgeting, the finance team developed
monthly actual and plan cost center
reporting, forecasting adjustments, exception
reporting, instant consolidations, ad hoc
queries, and scenario planning. Return on
investment in terms of greater efficiency and
higher data quality was imminent. The
internal analysis also revealed greater
accuracy and delivery time in forecasts.