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Erhvervsstyrelsen: Automating financial planning processes and building budgets that everyone believes in
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
Use Cases
- Predictive Replenishment
Services
- System Integration
- Training
The Challenge
Erhvervsstyrelsen, the Danish Business Authority, supports businesses across Denmark. It runs 450 projects across 27 offices, employs 600 people, and is responsible for an annual budget of DKK 600 million (USD 89.8 million), as well as a number of national and EU grants. Each of these projects manages its own budget – but Erhvervsstyrelsen needs to maintain control of overall expenditure, report back to the Danish parliament, and demonstrate the value it delivers for taxpayers’ money. For this reason, it is very important for the organization to have a robust, reliable budgeting process. Erhvervsstyrelsen was formed by a merger of three former agencies, each of which had its own separate budgeting system. Since none of these systems could be adapted to meet the needs of the new organization, Erhvervsstyrelsen set up a new budgeting process based on spreadsheets. This process involved sending out spreadsheets to each project manager, and manually collecting and consolidating the data they sent back.
About The Customer
Erhvervsstyrelsen, the Danish Business Authority, is a government agency that supports businesses across Denmark. It runs 450 projects across 27 offices, employs 600 people, and is responsible for an annual budget of DKK 600 million (USD 89.8 million), as well as a number of national and EU grants. The organization endeavors to create the best conditions for economic growth in Europe, to make it easy and attractive to run a business in Denmark, and to improve Denmark’s competitiveness both within the EU and internationally. To support these objectives, the organization manages approximately 450 different projects, which aim at improving every aspect of the Danish business landscape, from simplifying regulations to fostering entrepreneurship.
The Solution
Following a rigorous procurement process, Erhvervsstyrelsen decided to implement an enterprise-class financial planning and analytics solution – IBM® Cognos® TM1®, implemented by IBM Business Partner Kapacity. The main objective was to select a solution that could automatically handle the data collection and consolidation processes, and eliminate the risk of relying on insecure, error-prone spreadsheets. When Kapacity showed what Cognos TM1 could do, the Erhvervsstyrelsen team was impressed – especially because it would be able to map its existing budget process into the system, rather than having to introduce a whole new process. The Erhvervsstyrelsen team was also impressed with the Kapacity consultants’ skills and knowledge, especially in the business analytics and business intelligence domain. The project involved more than just a technical implementation: it was also important to help the users adjust to the new system. It took some time for users to adapt from the familiar spreadsheet-based process to the new interface.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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