The Planful Virtual Tour – The Day 3 Recap

We’ve just wrapped up the Planful Virtual Tour, and what a Tour it was! Today’s third and final day was just as jammed with great customer stories and helpful product sessions as the previous two days. We heard from Bose Corporation and Carta, got a walk through Planful’s new Dynamic Canvas, and saw how Flow Dimension helps you better manage cash flow—especially critical as we all recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19. Finally, we gave a detailed look at Planful Now, our new offering that gets customers live on Planful in less than 30 days. 

Here’s what else Day 3 had in store, and if you missed a session, you can watch the entire Planful Virtual Tour on-demand.

Getting Back on Track with Planful Now

Rowan Tonkin, our SVP, Marketing, explained how FP&A can start their Continuous Planning journey in under a month with Planful Now. It’s designed to help companies regroup and recover, even in the face of continuing uncertainty. This high impact, fast time-to-value offer can be aimed at your most critical FP&A needs. It builds business resiliency, gives you more speed and agility, and helps FP&A and the business make better, smarter decisions, together. 

Rowan explained how companies can choose the use-cases most important to their business, then expand their use of Planful to cover broader swaths of FP&A and push more value out into every corner of the business. To learn more, visit our Planful Now page.

Bose Sounds Great with Workforce Planning

Luis Martinez Luna, Sr. Financial & Business Analyst within the Corporate FP&A group at Bose Corporation, gave an insightful view into how the well-known audio technology company is using Planful Workforce Planning to automate and optimize headcount planning. In an especially timely session, Luis talked about the closure of their huge retail operations due to COVID-19, and how they’re now using Planful to develop reopening plans.

“Being able to re-forecast quickly and efficiently in the next 12 months is going to be hugely helpful for us as we pivot and redirect the ship with COVID-19,” said Luiz.

He also explained how Planful’s fast what-if scenario planning and monthly forecasting are critical in helping the company plan for reopening. Luis also talked about Planful’s pivotal role in the company’s transition from annual to quarterly planning. Next up for Bose is to start using Planful to guide demand and supply planning.

Carta Charts a Course Away from Spreadsheets

Kevin Zell, Head of the Strategic Finance team at Carta, detailed how Planful helped them move away from spreadsheets, even during a period of fast growth. Carta, which helps companies manage their capital investments and equity plans, was experiencing many delays, errors, and a lack of visibility for FP&A and the business—all challenges created by spreadsheets. They needed a new approach, Kevin explained, so they used Planful to bring their Finance, Strategy, and business teams together and off of spreadsheets for good.

Kevin also explained how Carta went live on Planful in just 6 weeks, and how it quickly delivered value in their weekly financial reporting by cutting 10 hours from the process. Now, to help recover from the COVID-19 crisis, they’re rolling Planful Workforce Planning and Sales Planning out to non-finance users.

“The constant business evolutions that we go through have made Planful a huge plus for us,” said Kevin. “A big factor that played into our decision was that it became clear Planful could get us high time-to-value as fast as possible. We were able to start building reports and have them in Planful very quickly. That alone took about 10 hours out of our process.”

More Planful Product Spotlights

Several of our in-house product experts demonstrated how Planful is helping FP&A teams drive more collaboration, better decision-making, and more confidence and certainty out to the edges of the business. Here’s what was covered in Day 3.

Mark Bauer, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Planful, and Rajesh Yennam, our Product Management Director, walked us through Planful’s new Dynamic Canvas, which they described as the future of the user experience in the Planful platform. It provides users with a single experience for data input, analysis, and decision-making, and puts structured and dynamic plans, actual data input templates, and reports and dashboards all in one place, on one screen, and in one experience. It’s an exciting new direction for Planful, and we can’t wait to get it into customers’ hands!

Ben Page, Solutions Consulting Director at Planful, covered Flow Dimension, explaining how it helps FP&A take control of cash flow reporting and forecasting. Ben also gave examples of how FP&A teams are accelerating cash flow reporting with the Flow Dimension, and how other features in Planful are used to automate statements of cash flow, even outside of the Flow Dimension.

ICYMI: Watch the Entire Virtual Tour On-demand

If you missed any portion of the Planful Virtual Tour, you can watch the recordings on-demand here. Hear our CEO, Grant Halloran, announce Planful Now. Watch SmartyPants Vitamins walk you through how they went live on Planful in just 20 days. Hear how the Boston Red Sox used Planful to bench Excel. And watch Planar, Bose, Carta, and other Planful customers explain how Planful helps FP&A compress cycle times, elevate the financial IQ in every corner of the business, and expand connections and collaboration. You can also see what’s in store for Planful’s products in 2020, and get into the details of Dynamic Planning, Dynamic Reports, Workforce Planning, Dynamic Canvas, and many other areas of the Planful platform.

Watch every bit of the Planful Virtual Tour on-demand here.