Case Study: OCLC
“Tagetik helped us to bring our budgeting and forecasting processes into a single, centralized, enterprise-wide system that operates in near real-time and allows for greater visibility into our planning process.”
Dave Coleman – Sr. Manager, Budget Planning & Analysis at OCLC
Objectives
To gain greater visibility in near real time, OCLC wanted to unify its budgeting and forecasting processes in a single, centralized system. As a global organization, however, it also understood that the requirements to effectively run these processes vary not only between the U.S. and Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) but also within the EMEA region itself.
Trying to find the right balance between standardized and localized business processes wasn’t the only challenge. OCLC plans in six currencies and has a matrix organizational structure that does not follow the legal entity structure. This demands a highly flexible solution from a management reporting standpoint.
Tagetik was a good fit against our requirements, we liked that it is web-based with an Excel interface, and we saw a strong commitment from the Tagetik team.
Results
OCLC selected Tagetik back in June 2009 and concluded its first budget cycle with the
software about a year later. In addition to forecasting revenues, expenses, balance sheet
and cash flow statements, OCLC uses Tagetik to budget sales, revenues, expenses,
capital expenditures, balance sheet and cash flow statements, and perform ratio and
other analysis.
Tagetik allows certain related processes to be integrated in an automated manner that
previously had manual integration points. For instance, we have been able to automate
the reconciliation between sales planning and revenue planning viewpoints.
“Our workforce planning has also benefited from Tagetik,” adds Dave Coleman, Sr. Manager,
Budget Planning and Analysis at OCLC. “We plan salaries at the individual position level and
calculate benefits either as a percentage of salaries or allocated based on full-time equivalents.
As a service organization, salaries and benefits make up over half of our total expenses, so this
is a critical component of our planning process.”
Tagetik allows OCLC to manage regional planning process variations, such as different financial
statement structures and also easily accommodated OCLC’s matrix organizational structure.
“Most importantly, Tagetik gives us the flexibility to do our ‘own’ EMEA things while ensuring that
our specific requirements fit in the global standards,” concludes Henri van der Meer, Financial
Controller at OCLC EMEA. “For example, we have one chart of accounts for OCLC worldwide
but different account hierarchies which support our various reporting requirements. By using
different methods, we can now effectively collaborate on our budgets across the globe.”
