Heroes

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.

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.

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.

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.

Jeff Polner is a Revelwood Hero

As director of corporate reporting for a leading provider of educational services, Jeff is responsible for providing accurate budgeting and planning data to management. When the company recently experienced rapid growth, keeping track of financial data from multiple groups in many locations was an enormous and time consuming task.

Jeff led the initiative to replace the company’s unwieldy spreadsheet system with a single platform business performance management (BPM) solution for budgeting, planning, forecasting, financial consolidation, reporting and analysis. The system he implemented vastly streamlines the budget process by empowering users with fast and easy access to a greater variety of real-time data.

Thanks to Jeff’s efforts to ensure timely and precise data, his team spends less time gathering data and more time managing the strategic aspects of the business. Jeff’s expertise with the BPM system and ability to create financial models and reports has earned him frequent recognition by his peers and management. No longer drowning in a sea of spreadsheets, Jeff’s team has all the financial information they need at their fingertips to make informed decisions, on-the-fly. This has reduced the cost of preparing budgets, increased productivity and improved employee morale.

Today, Jeff is known for his technical expertise and as the “go to” person who is always available to offer help. With an expedited budgeting process firmly in place, Jeff continues to find innovative ways to present unique data sets to his team.

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.