Driver-Based Planning at Global Scale, One Million Dollars Under Budget

The Situation

The client wanted to expand a new driver-based planning application to global scale, covering 14 product lines and 50,000 cost centers.

They hired a Big Four professional services firm to lead it. Supported by seven consultants, the project lead brought us in to help complete the work.

The Challenge

Within three months, the client determined the Big Four leadership could not meet the project timelines or budget goals. They removed the lead firm and asked us to direct the project through to completion.

Inheriting a delayed project at that scale means the timeline has already been consumed by someone else, and the migration ahead included moving more than 1,200 users, up to and including the company president, off traditional planning and onto a driver-based application.

Our Approach

After taking over, we built a project plan against the client's full set of requirements.

• Seven years of historical actual data was loaded, with current actuals updated three times a month across all 50,000 cost centers.
• Forecast and budget data was transferred from a calculated database to a reporting database every ten minutes, using Maxl statements.
• Extensive calculation logic was created to build the driver-based application.
• Hyperion Planning was used to allocate IT costs to individual cost centers.
• Custom currency translation was built so users could view figures in either local or reporting currency.

The Results

The project was completed within the anticipated timeline of one year and three months, and came in more than $1 million under budget.

We completed it with three consultants, down from the original lead firm's seven. The client was able to calculate product of sale faster and more accurately, calculate costs effectively, and increase profit margins.

"The performance of the team continues to impress us. They took command of this project and delivered to our expectation, while saving us nearly $2 million. While the team's technical expertise and application knowledge is exceptional, they successfully balance it with an unparalleled commitment to discovery."

Senior Director, Energy Company

Why It Mattered

Fewer consultants finishing a project faster than a larger team started it is not a staffing accident. It reflects how much of a delayed implementation is spent rediscovering requirements that were never properly established.