Variance Reporting
Siloed decision-making, human error, spreadsheets
From gut-based planning to driver- based budgetings.
Financial Planning & Analysis
Pharmaceuticals
On a mission to complete the digital transformation of the entire enterprise, the global pharma giant implemented Anaplan to eliminate incongruities, modernize their budgeting process and address the emerging business requirements. Their five-pronged approach to dynamic budgetary planning required going back & forth multiple times, adding up to the complexities and furthering the chances of human-errors.
With Anaplan, all that hassle is removed, as it automatically does all the calculations & revisions, along with suggesting scenarios to course correct.
We never thought planning could be this intuitive and agile. Anaplan brings innovation in every decision we take.”
- Senior Financial Planning ProfessionalThe global pharmaceutical giant offers a wide range of products and services across geographies. This spread brings in a lot of consistent business but exposes decision-makers to the monumental task of managing a complex network of distribution centres & vendors – along with inefficient processes at each level.
They were evaluating a platform that could eliminate these inadequate practices and fuel innovation led by dynamic planning.
Recognizing this need for a dynamic planning, the integrated pharmaceutical company followed an extended strategy and budget allocation calendar – wherein, they initially prepared a strategy for the next year before moving on to update the prices, incorporate the changes due to any unforeseen occurrences, changes in the customer mix, followed by two subsequent reviews with the CEO before the final closure.
Making amends and incorporating all the suggestions was a tedious & repetitive process and prone to error. The report turn-around time was way beyond expectations.
Transactional records being maintained with the individual distribution centers across– spreadsheets, databases and ledgers
Financial consolidation was dependent on data from distribution centers, NSMs, department heads & tech systems holding this information
Once this data is received, it was required to be formatted and cleaned as a consistent approach was not followed.
Due poor master data management, forecasting and target allocation was gut-based & lacked transparency at different levels.
Business stakeholders, be it distribution centers or the company board along with all the information they need are on a single platform
They finalized Anaplan as the tool to optimize the budgeting, forecasting and financial consolidation. Polestar acted as a strategic implementation partner.
The first stage was getting to know the long-term and short-term business goals and expectation of the business stakeholders. Post multiple requirements gathering and brain-storming sessions, the Polestar team captured the business challenges & objectives and defined the to-be state.
The next step was building models to connect the different budgeting processes in Anaplan. The Polestar team reinvented the enterprise-wide financial budgeting & business processes.
Anaplan helped them eliminate all the challenges completely.
Further, the Anaplan’s no-coding and business-like syntax gave users the possibility to forecast and extrapolate future scenarios with ease.
Any budgeting changes can be easily integrated, without worrying about the redundancy or calculation errors
The Intelligent platform allows decision-makers to run multiple scenarios and opt for what’s best for the business
Fluctuations across prices, customer-mix, workers compensation, fuel costs, etc. could be done by changing the values.
Cost-center and proper GL–code tagging made the processes transparent and hassle-free
Business stakeholders, be it distribution centers or the company board along with all the information they need are on a single platform
