... Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort ...

Paul J. Meyer

Business Planner

Planning - Flexible planning and budgeting in all areas

The classic approach of corporate planning is suffering from inefficiency. New strategies in the area of planning and budgeting attach less importance to annual budgets. The goal is rather a short term improvement of planning quality and a reduction of complexity. At the same time strategic goals should be better linked to operative planning. With the module Business Planer (BP) it is possible to manage a flexible corporate structure with the desired planning hierarchy. The planning processes are considerably simplified and accelerated.

The kind and number of the value-types to be planned (Sales, Contribution Margin, Price etc) are free definable. Furthermore an unlimited number of free definable Simulation Logics can be built. The planning process can be performed Top-down and Bottom-up in parallel (or parallel to other variations) and supports comparison to historical or other related data. Seasonality, historical development of data and other characteristics are taken into account. The plan-state is indicated – like in all the other modules – using an early warning system. All plan-data can be analyzed in a multidimensional way and can be compared to actual data or other data of interest. Further features of Business Planner are:

  • Editing of plan-figures on every level of the hierarchy (values are automatically broken down to invisible levels)
  • Various visualization features like charts, value-driver trees etc.
  • Detailed planning on a monthly basis (or other periods like quarters, weeks etc.)
  • Messaging system
  • Calendar features with tasks, due dates, memos, status and responsibilities.

Using BA - Business Analyzer a GAP analysis of the different plan-variations can be performed or the plans can be compared to interactive simulations. In the module BD - Business Dashboard plan data is associated with all other relevant KPIs and therefore supports to build a strategic corporate planning.

Business Planner is a comfortable and powerful alternative to complex but often unclear and inflexible planning using spreadsheet software. As a frontend for a Data Warehouse or connected to an ERP system Business, Planner contributes to a more transparent and consistent corporate planning by automatically aggregating all the relevant data.

Multidimensional Planning

Planning structures can be freely defined according to the situation in the company. The user decides if product-, regional-, customer or other hierarchies are connected to each other and how deep these hierarchies are actively planned. The system automatically calculates the lower (invisible) levels and also all parallel hierarchies according to the underlying base-data. Kind and number of the value types to be planned are free definable.Top-down, bottom-up or other variations of a plan can be maintained on each level of the planning structure.

Top-down/Bottom-up planning

According to the planning-philosophy of the company multiple parallel planning processes can be initiated. A Top-down plan can at the same time also be edited in the form of a Bottom-up and vice-versa or one of the two can be used as base/template for the other. Top-down and Bottom-up are just two possibilities to use the free definable plan-variations of Business Planner.

Plan status and Workflow

A clearly arranged status-overview informs about the status and progress of all plans. Aside from responsibility, due dates and other information the status of each individual sub-plan is indicated. By using status-control a workflow is created from plan-activation to the final plan acceptance.

Complete integration with Business Analyzer

The module BA - Business Analyzer is completely integrated with BP - Business Planner. Data can be analyzed immediately after planning. Actual data from BA can be used as historical or otherwise related data in BP. Business Analyzer and Business Planner use the same user interface and the same features to a large extend. Therefore a short learning-time and efficient usage are ensured.