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Knowing when it’s time to move from Excel to Adaptive Planning can be a challenge.
Spreadsheets are a core component of almost every business operation performed in an organization. They provide the workspace and computational functionality needed to gain insights while providing a familiarity that all professionals are comfortable using. In simpler terms, spreadsheets are not going anywhere, but the same might not be the case for Excel.
You see, while spreadsheets aren’t going anywhere, the days of storing this information on local hard drives and Excel workbooks are numbered. Although this system of distributing, consolidating, and verifying data may work within a small organization, it is not efficient, and larger organizations simply can’t keep up with all of the different versioning required to succeed on a noncentralized platform.
In this post we cover 3 signs it’s time to move away from Excel and towards Adaptive Planning for your ERP needs.
First, What is Workday Adaptive Planning?
Workday Adaptive Planning provides all of the functionality of your traditional spreadsheets, and more, all while pulling in real-time data from across your organization from your ERP, CRM, or any data source you may have. This cloud-based system provides a single source of truth that improves visibility and clarity in your organization. By using real-time connections with all of your company data sources you are provided with the ability to create new versions, drill down into the specific inputs of your models, and scale your business.
QBIX Analytics is a Workday Solutions Provider, and you can learn more about the Workday Adaptive Planning platform and it’s implementation here.
Here are 3 signs that you need no make the switch:
1. The Use of Excel is no longer streamlined
In order to begin the budgeting process, FP&A teams need to consolidate their prior year information to gain insights into trends and anomalies that presented themselves over the past fiscal year. In smaller organizations, this consolidation effort may only take a couple of days as budget owners are able to distribute their data and confirm their data over only a few different parts of the organization.
However, as a business scales, there become a number of different data sources from all over the organization. This means that the process no longer is as simple as sharing workbooks but instead becomes a grueling exercise of consolidating, verifying, and redistributing these siloed data sources. Soon enough, your organization is likely spending more time preparing to budget than actually making decisions that pertain to your new budget.
2. Excel Limits Your Ability to Automate Your Budget
Part of what makes Workday Adaptive Planning so powerful is that the models in the system are dynamic. Meaning that, unlike Excel where new inputs need to be directed into the existing model, Adaptive can take your existing assumptions and incorporate these new additions straight into the model. Additionally, budgets change. When a change does happen it is important that the change ripples through all parts of the organization. Due to the single source of truth that Adaptive provides, these changes automatically affect all related parts of your model.
3. Lack of Scalability
Another telltale sign that it’s time to move away from Excel is if you see an inability to scale your current practices. Younger organizations may feel confident in the Excel models that they have created but what happens when your business begins to grow? Actions such as opening new locations, purchasing new subsidiaries, or developing new products create a need for new or updated models.
With Workday Adaptive Planning, these models can be made instantaneously with the most up-to-date information available to provide immediate feedback. Models can also be tweaked and adjusted quickly and easily providing an immediate single source of truth for all of your employees. Although this process may be replicable in an Excel spreadsheet, these spreadsheets become hard to follow, with edits in one workbook not carrying over to other models.
Benefits of Switching From Excel to Adaptive Planning
Little To No Learning Curve
One key advantage of using Workday Adaptive Planning is its ease of use. Although it may be a new software in your organization, many of the key features that appear in all spreadsheets are still present in Adaptive. Even easier is the fact that Adaptive integrates directly with Excel through Office Connect. Office Connect allows you to use the same Excel spreadsheets from the past with the ability to directly pull data from Workday Adaptive Planning’s Models. This combines the computation functionality of Excel with the cloud-based consolidation of Adaptive to provide an easy user experience for even the least tech-savvy of employees.
Although the process of building models differs a little from typical Excel model building, with the help of an implementation specialist your system can be up and running in a matter of weeks.
Flexible and Real-Time Reporting
Thanks to the single source of truth that Adaptive provides, the system allows for extremely powerful reporting to be done ad hoc for any business scenario. Instead of past processes that require new individual reports to be created by product, geography, or department, Adaptive provides the ability to plug data into different existing reports. These reports are dynamic and change as the data is updated as well as give users the ability to drill down into the makeup of the values.
Finally, another benefit of Office Connect is its ability to integrate with not only Excel but PowerPoint and Word as well. This means you can populate existing slide decks and word reports at the push of a button so that more time is spent reviewing the data as opposed to collecting it.
Make The Switch
Although Excel is great for a business as it builds processes and develops its best practices, it is clear it has its limitations. While these limitations may not be apparent right away, they may come back to haunt you in the future. Avoid these future headaches and make the switch from Excel to Adaptive Planning as soon as possible.
While making that switch may seem like a daunting task, implementation specialists like QBIX are here to help. By combining our experiences with yours, we are able to collaborate on best practices and provide organizations with dynamic and robust models that keep your business prepared for whatever might come next.