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Keeping Advanced Energy in the Game to Keep Us All in the Game
Tough economic times require tough measures for companies to remain in the game or even in business. Companies in growth industries are not exempt from this rule. For decades, Advanced Energy (AE), based in Fort Collins, Colorado, has been a global leader in innovative power and control technologies for high-growth, thin-film manufacturing and solar power generation. Leveraging a focused product portfolio and technology leadership, AE creates solutions aimed at maximizing process impact, improving productivity and lowering cost of ownership for its customers, including original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and end-users around the world.
The problem
In 2007, Advanced Energy entered the high-growth solar inverter market. They were well positioned with the right technology as well as service infrastructure . . . and then the economy faltered. As most companies, AE moved to improve their cost efficiencies. One of the departments most affected was the Finance department which was to be reduced from a team of fourteen to a team of two. Since Finance was responsible for budgeting and planning for the entire company, the controller knew it was essential that even with fewer resources the department had to deliver its work with as much precision as ever.
The planning process for AE is done in Q4, with quarterly updates to the forecast. In the “old” planning process, Finance would e-mail templates to each of the 250 cost center managers. Each cost center had its own template which had been loaded by Finance with historical actuals for capex and headcount. After the cost center budgets had been e-mailed back, Finance would consolidate all budget submissions, load the data in SAP ERP and revise as necessary. It was time consuming, labor intensive process to assemble, update, distribute and consolidate all of the templates. If this was to be done with fewer people, it was clear that the process itself needed to change. Manual processes, zero-based budgeting, and other inefficient practices needed to give way to something more scalable.
The solution
To create a sustainable planning solution, they knew they needed an integrated budgeting/planning tool—a business planning and consolidation system—with critical features that would allow them to conduct robust reviews, handle foreign and domestic currencies, manage budgeting on history rather than a zero-base, and create summary reports based on hierarchy level. They also had a wish list of items that would make their lives easier such as a user-friendly tool with automation and a set of standard reports for managers to use during business reviews. And, of course, all of this had to be administered by the two people who now made up the Finance department.
After extensive research with numerous demos and evaluations, AE decided on SAP BPC as their budgeting tool. Global Analytics was recommended by SAP as the consulting partner to get the job done right the first time and under the challenging time constraints of the AE planning process. In fact, the window to implement the change in time for 2009 Planning was two months.
Change Management
With an eye toward a quick start, the AE implementation team leveraged SAP training and online reference sources to become familiar with the product before implementation. As part of the change management process for end users and cost center managers, the implementation team initiated an awareness campaign which included face-to-face sessions as well as broadcast updates which commenced several months before the go-live date. The communications kept staff abreast of the changes that were coming while explaining the benefits of the transition.The change management program continued after the implementation. In addition to making sure comprehensive documentation of the system was available to users at all times, AE and Global Analytics provided two weeks of hands-on training prior to the start of the planning cycle and conducted “drop in sessions” during the cycle.
The results
Thorough preparation and training insured the conversion project was a success, allowing fewer resources to deliver a more efficient, comprehensive and reliable Planning process than ever before. Today, CFO Lawrence Firestone contends that BPC made it possible for AE to stay in the game while managing costs—which is good for all of us since companies like AE are in the business of solving our energy problems to keep us all in the game!
Find out how building speed and agility into your consolidation, forecasting, reporting and analysis systems ensures your ability to rapidly respond to today's financial pressures. Contact us now!
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