 |
 |
Heroes
|
|
 |
 |

Heroes
Revelwood honors corporate heroes that make a difference in their
organizations with performance management solutions. Revelwood heroes
are fundamental to their company's success and are recognized within
their organizations for their outstanding contributions and achievements.
Dina Bank is a Revelwood
Hero
As director of financial systems of a full-service
media and marketing communications agency, Dina is responsible
for providing management with information about staff
costing, as well as business unit and client profitability.
When Dina joined the company, the management team
had already selected a business performance management
(BPM) solution and Dina was charged with overseeing
the implementation of their new budgeting, planning
and reporting system. When completed, Dina unveiled
a dynamic financial system that enables her team to
perform 360-degree analytics by "slicing and dicing”
information on unlimited business scenarios, sharpening
forecasting accuracy and giving management insight into
data they never had before. Dina's work enables management
to identify potential problem areas quickly and easily,
keeping them apprised of the company’s financial health.
With resounding success on the initial implementation,
Dina expanded the scope of the project to include salary
forecasting, the monthly payroll reconciliation and
client profitability, making the work for those teams
more streamlined and infinitely easier. Dina’s current
short-term goal is to roll out the system to the operational
staff, effectively decentralizing forecasting in the
company.
Dina has received recognition at a global level for
her work and is often invited to transfer her vast knowledge
as a speaker at industry events and as a contributor
in financial publications.
At Revelwood, we make heroes of our clients by empowering
them with BPM solutions. To learn more about becoming
a hero, click here.
Rob Bonatakis is a Revelwood
Hero
As manager of financial planning and analysis for a global leader in maintenance, repair and revitalization services for the energy industry, Rob is known as a “data guru”. He shepherds and coordinates the collection of data from all business units, overseeing corporate budgeting, planning, reporting, capital resourcing and public filings for a $600M company that leads the industry in generating cash. With each line of business using a different general ledger, revenue system and massive Excel spreadsheets, it was difficult to efficiently collect, store, consolidate and report on the financial data, making the financial planning and analysis process difficult, time-consuming and error-prone. A better solution was needed.
Rob spearheaded the initiative to implement a business performance management (BPM) solution. His experience and finesse with data enabled the company to go from crawling to sprinting in virtually no time. With all the various systems integrated and data now residing in a centralized repository, Rob has been able to eliminate unnecessary manual data gathering and data entry errors, dramatically increasing the efficacy of the financial planning and analysis process. With accurate and consolidated real-time data, Rob uses actual and budget information to do fast, flexible reporting and ad hoc analysis—including the ability to ‘slice and dice’ data by industry, refinery and product line. Processes that used to take hours or even days to complete now take a few right clicks and a couple of F9s and are done in just minutes.
Rob has met and exceeded all expectations in revamping the entire financial planning and analysis system by implementing a world-class BPM solution. He wins rave reviews from his CFO and other senior management members, as well as the individual business units on a continual basis. Everyone loves the BPM system and is thrilled to be working faster, smarter and more strategically.
At Revelwood, we make heroes of our clients by empowering
them with BPM solutions. To learn more about becoming
a hero, click here.
Darris Crandall is
a Revelwood Hero
As VP in accounting and finance in a full-service
investment bank, Darris works directly for the controller
and CFO, managing the internal and external financial
reporting and budgeting for all domestic and international
business lines. Shortfalls in the reporting process
and difficulty managing different divisions led Darris
to seek and implement a business performance management
(BPM) solution for his firm.
The results have been tremendous – far exceeding
original expectations. The time savings are unquantifiable
– “countless man hours saved”. Reporting is now done
on a regional, individual entity and consolidated basis,
quickly and easily. The system has also proven adaptive
in expanding from a private to a publicly held company
listed on the NYSE. Darris is able to meet strict government
requirements including Sarbanes Oxley compliance and
he uses his system as a management tool for reporting
and vendor spend analysis.
Darris and his team have garnered continuous praise
from top management for their ability to easily adapt
to business decisions in a short time frame and accommodate
tight deadlines while complying with all regulatory
issues.
At Revelwood, we make heroes of our clients by empowering
them with BPM solutions. To learn more about becoming
a hero, click here.
Justin Croft is a Revelwood Hero
As manager of financial analysis and planning for one of the largest privately held wireless companies in the United States, Justin is responsible for the annual budgeting and planning process, profitability analysis for rate plans, features and proposed products, as well as many other special finance projects that ensure company success. With hundreds of spreadsheets, multiple databases and an antiquated budgeting system, Justin spent most of his time gathering and verifying the accuracy of data rather than helping management make strategic decisions.
Justin's team began a diligent effort to find a better budgeting and planning system that would allow the company to produce more dynamic and detailed budgets in a faster and more efficient manner. With little internal IT resources available, it was critical that Justin find a user-friendly and robust solution his department could manage.
Justin's hard work paid off and now his company has a centralized database for everyone to enter their budgeting information, allowing one comprehensive budget that offers transparency and increases data integrity. The ability to drill down to the detail behind the numbers has pleased everyone from the CFO all the way down to the line managers. The accounting department is no longer burdened with manually looking up invoices and researching questions from the field. With fast, flexible reporting and ad hoc analysis, Justin feels he is able to focus on the needs of the company and contribute meaningful insight to support management with their decision-making process.
At Revelwood, we make heroes of our clients by empowering
them with BPM solutions. To learn more about becoming
a hero, click here.
Barry Ferguson is
a Revelwood Hero
As senior director of finance of one of the nation’s
fastest growing voice and broadband Internet providers
focused exclusively on serving small businesses, Barry
has ownership of budgeting, planning and analysis, as
well as overseeing stock option valuation and administration.
Rapid and continued growth made using spreadsheets for
modeling, forecasting and sensitivity analysis cumbersome
and unmanageable. Often, there was little time to understand
the data or see what was behind the numbers. A more
robust solution was needed for timely and accurate forecasting.
Barry and his experienced team thoroughly researched
the many options for a business performance management
(BPM) solution. His leadership and his team’s determination
resulted in taking a quantum leap from their primitive
spreadsheet structure to a powerful and unified analytics
platform. With all necessary data residing in one place,
Barry is able to ‘slice and dice” the data for improved
visibility and flexibility. Moreover, it is now possible
to easily marry the financial and operational data so
Barry and the groups he supports can make better and
more informed decisions that affect the company’s bottom
line.
Initially deploying the solution in the finance area,
Barry and his team are now learning new ways to apply
their BPM solution to other functional areas in the
company including HR, operations and accounting. Barry’s
team has been recognized by top management all the way
down to individual contributors for what they have been
able to accomplish. Known by his team for his high quality
and efficiency expectations, Barry has created a world-renowned
finance group everyone at the company appreciates and
respects.
At Revelwood, we make heroes of our clients by empowering
them with BPM solutions. To learn more about becoming
a hero, click here.
Andrea Hilder is
a Revelwood Hero
As the assistant casino controller for a global cruise ship company, Andrea is responsible for compiling the data of all ship casinos to assist the company casino controller with the annual budgeting and reporting process. Growth over the years had led to more than 200 linked spreadsheets and reports which were occasionally prone to errors. Gathering data was an extremely manual process and verifying the accuracy of that data was so time-intensive that late updates to the budget could not be accommodated and forecasting was not a viable option. In addition, data needed for analysis from one financial system could only provide hard copy “vanilla” reports that could only be printed and data from their other financial system was only available to a limited number of users.
Andrea championed the initiative to improve and automate the annual budgeting and reporting process. After searching various options, Andrea found a business performance management (BPM) solution that met the needs of the corporate casino controller’s office and would be easy for non-finance end-users to use. The result has been nothing short of miraculous. The BPM system was readily adopted and accepted by all users. Data is now accessible from a centralized repository which allows users to see and analyze data they could not previously gather without manual effort or request from the controller or Andrea. Reports can be easily manipulated or copied into Excel, making them more versatile and useful. Reports and charts that were once thought impossible are now available instantly by ship, by brand, for actual versus forecast and more. The annual budgeting and reporting process is much more efficient, Andrea and her team have more time to devote to other projects during budget season and are working fewer weekends.
Andrea and her team have received continuous praise from everyone who uses the new BPM solution. There is also a resounding consensus on how much easier the annual budgeting and reporting process is now. Andrea continues to be an advocate of the system, training new users and learning new and innovative ways to use it.
At Revelwood, we make heroes of our clients by empowering them with performance management solutions. To learn more about becoming
a hero, click here.
Brian Johnson is a
Revelwood Hero
As VP and global finance systems leader for a leading
financial services company with more than 15 million
customers in over 26 countries, Brian is responsible
for providing innovative processes and advanced technology
to enable his organization to effectively utilize financial
data.
A multitude of disparate financial systems and a
lack of transparency into corporate consolidation and
global expense budgeting results led Brian to spearhead
a BPM initiative. With an enterprise-wide expense budgeting
solution firmly in place in less than 140 days, more
than 850 worldwide users participate in the workflow-based
budgeting process, utilizing more than 20 defined currencies.
Through Brian’s efforts, the company now has one global
expense budgeting solution and an 800% cycle time improvement
on expense allocations. Overwhelming user acceptance
has resulted in immediate system adoption.
A visionary, Brian’s future plans include enabling
the entire company to budget, report, model and forecast
through a single global solution that allows continuous
improvement, sustainability, growth and low cost of
ownership.
At Revelwood, we make heroes of our clients by empowering
them with BPM solutions. To learn more about becoming
a hero, click here.
Jonathan Kahan is
a Revelwood Hero
As director of finance and research for a division
of a top media and entertainment company, corporate
management relies on Jonathan to provide insight and
visibility into financial and operational data. Struggling
with disparate data and multiple spreadsheets involving
thousands of calculations, creating an accurate forecast
was a daunting and time-consuming task, often prone
to error with little time for analysis.
Jonathan was integral in spearheading the initiative
to select and implement a dynamic business performance
management (BPM) solution for his division’s budgeting,
forecasting and reporting within just eight weeks. The
speed with which he can gather information, along with
the breadth and depth of the information, allows him
to devote more time to analytics. Rather than give a
single metric or number, Jonathan can tell a story,
helping management make strategic decisions to increase
revenue.
Jonathan’s ability to transform financial data has
not only earned him top recognition from his corporate
management and peers, he is also sought after for speaking
opportunities at industry events.
At Revelwood, we make heroes of our clients by empowering
them with BPM solutions. To learn more about becoming
a hero, click here.
Allen Schatz is a
Revelwood Hero
As director of financial reporting and planning for
a division of a leading media and entertainment company,
Allen is responsible for collecting and disseminating
financial information. A plethora of multi-linked spreadsheets
scattered over a multitude of revenue and cost centers
made data gathering manual and time-intensive.
Allen helped replace the company’s archaic spreadsheet
system with a multi-dimensional business performance
management (BPM) solution that automatically gathers
and aggregates data in real-time from the disparate
centers. With a centralized repository, planning and
reporting can be done in real time and reports that
used to take hours to create are now done with the push
of a button in only minutes, leaving more time for Allen
to analyze the results. This allows him to help management
make important decisions.
Allen’s passion for the solution led to his endorsement
of a corporate-wide initiative. This will align all
the different divisions, enabling everyone to accomplish
more by working smarter, not harder.
At Revelwood, we make heroes of our clients by empowering
them with BPM solutions. To learn more about becoming
a hero, click here.
Chris Wright is a
Revelwood Hero
As a senior business analyst for one of the nation’s
fastest growing managed services providers of IP-based
communications and IT services to small businesses,
Chris is responsible for compiling and interpreting
company data to support senior management’s decisions.
With rapid growth, reorganizations, and new markets
came an unruly array of disparate systems and a budget
model consisting of over 200 spreadsheets. Gathering
data and verifying its accuracy left little time for
analysis.
Chris’s department made the choice to find and implement
a robust, driver-based, budgeting and forecasting system
that would allow scenario analysis and ad-hoc reporting
on all of the company’s systems. With a background in
software engineering, Chris was able to work with IT
to construct data feeds for the new system and translate
business rules into calculations as part of the implementation.
The result is that Excel-based reports that used to
be static are now dynamic with the touch of a button.
Interlinking data with all the functional groups in
the organization has allowed Chris to tie together granular
data such as customer, employee headcount and compensation
and company financials to give instant answers to managers
at all levels. Reported information is more timely and
accurate, which has greatly improved reaction time.
Chris and his team now have a system that leverages
their expertise in modeling while scaling to the growing
needs of the business. No longer simply trying to tread
water in a sea of data, Chris is able to focus his time
on analyzing the issues that matter most to senior management.
At Revelwood, we make heroes of our clients by empowering
them with BPM solutions. To learn more about becoming
a hero, click here.
|
 |

|
 |