Deploying a Scalable Gross Margin Planning Process
The Situation
A large janitorial services company had outgrown their old gross margin forecasting and budgeting process. With over 70K locations with their own gross margin calculations, the Company had scaled to a size where a more robust planning tool was needed. Accordion was engaged to build a gross margin forecasting and budgeting model using Anaplan, with the scalability to effectively plan at the location level without experiencing performance issues.
Services
Budgeting/Forecasting Solution Implementation
Reporting & Analytics
The Execution
- Worked closely with the Company’s finance & IT teams to develop a framework that would address the needs of the solution.
- Developed gross margin forecasting and budgeting processes at the location and account level of detail for the Company.
- Built integration processes to import location-level billing and revenue data into Anaplan from NetSuite.
- Calculated workforce expenses at the location level using service plan data and average wage rates.
- Calculated non-personnel expenses based on custom selection of trend-based or driver-based planning at the location level of detail.
- Designed reporting and analytics dashboards to display the calculated forecast and budget data, as well as present variance analysis.
The Results
Accordion successfully implemented an Anaplan model that provided the Company with location-level gross margin planning capabilities and real-time calculation of top-level gross margin. The new model can effectively plan at the scale required without experiencing performance issues, enabling the team to complete their planning processes in less time and with better data quality. Additionally, Accordion was able to implement the model in a condensed timeline due to timing constraints from the Company.