Leading Retailer, Ariat, Transforms its FP&A Processes with Workday Adaptive Planning and Kainos
Leading Retailer, Ariat, Transforms its FP&A Processes with Workday Adaptive Planning and Kainos
Dan Brooks, Senior Sales Director at Kainos, the number one global partner worldwide for Workday Adaptive Planning, recently interviewed Alvaro Miranda, director of Reporting & Analytics at Ariat International to find out how Workday Adaptive Planning has helped transform and modernize Ariat’s financial planning and analysis (FP&A) processes as well as increase FP&A efficiency. The following are some key takeaways from their discussion. View the webinar in its entirety here.
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Ariat’s Pain Points
Ariat is a California-based retailer that specializes in innovative and award-winning performance products for all types of outdoor and work environments. The 750-employee company is best known for its boots and western wear.
Prior to implementing Workday Adaptive Planning, Ariat relied on close to one hundred Excel profit center and cost center files, using dozens of Excel VLOOKUP functions to create consolidated views from all the files. As Alvaro described, it was “Excel madness and totally unsustainable,” causing bottlenecks in the development of accurate and timely financial reports and plans.
When it came time to look for a new solution, Ariat selected Workday Adaptive Planning over others because it was finance focused and offered an ease of use that would make it easier for the finance team to use and would help increase user adoption. When it came to implementation, Ariat decided to work with Kainos because the retailer understood the need to work with a solution provider that knows how to successfully implement Adaptive Planning.
The Impact of Workday Adaptive Planning on Ariat's FP&A Processes
Adaptive Planning solution and the impact on the retailer’s FP&A process was immediate and significant. The transfer of all of their profit center and cost center files into Adaptive Planning did the following:
- Created a single source of the truth for their financial modeling and dissolved concern and hesitation around data integrity
- Streamlined the process of locating the financial information Ariat needed
- OfficeConnect let them hit one button and the forecast is updated quickly and correctly through different Microsoft applications
- Enabled the team to move faster through all of its forecasting processes due to streamlined processes
- Removed the concern that staff was using outdated spreadsheets and Excel formulas weren’t updated
- Provided greater insight into their data
- Reduced low value tasks
The switch to Adaptive Planning has also allowed Ariat to quickly and easily adjust their financial reporting models and scenario analysis to match the needs of each of their business partners. For example, Ariat is now able to produce forecasting models for each of their eCommerce platforms at a macro level while also providing retail stores with individual forecasts based on the set of metrics that are relevant and useful to them. In addition to creating models that are adapted to their individual business groups such as eCommerce, wholesale, and retail, Adaptive Planning has allowed Ariat’s finance team to standardize processes so they all use the same methodology and make decisions quicker. They are now working closer with their business partners and meeting them where they are.
Ariat's Next Steps with Workday Adaptive Planning
Now that Ariat has finished the initial rollout of Workday Adaptive Planning, they are starting to focus on maximizing the value and benefits the software can have on their FP&A processes. They plan to create even more unique formulas and custom accounts within the system to make their reports and analysis even more targeted, relevant, and comprehensive.
