Budgeting Software Journal

Rapidly-Growing Energy Firm Saves $100,000 in Administrative Costs and Reduces Budget Creation Time by 152 Man-Hour Days.

Hyperion (Nasdaq Global Select: HYSL), the global leader in Business Performance Management (BPM) software, today announced that Canadian energy leader Inter Pipeline Fund (Inter Pipeline) has successfully leveraged Hyperion BPM solutions to trim more than $100,000 in administrative costs while reducing the number of hours it takes to prepare budgets by 76 percent.

A global petroleum transportation, storage and natural gas liquids extraction business based in Calgary, Alberta, Inter Pipeline achieved the efficiencies by automating a manual, spreadsheet-based budgeting and reporting infrastructure, even as it saw its revenues grow by more than 1,000 percent in the past five years. In June, Inter Pipeline ranked 62^nd on Profit Magazine’s PROFIT 100 list of the fastest growing companies in Canada. [Read more →]

Enterprise Company Expects to Save Millions of Dollars and Significantly Improve Business Insight and Efficiency With Migration From Oracle to the Microsoft Dynamics Platform.

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT - News) today announced that W.C. Bradley Co. has selected Microsoft Dynamics(TM) GP to handle its corporate enterprise resource planning (ERP) functions, including aggregation of data from multiple divisions of the company. Founded in 1895, and based in Columbus, Ga., W.C. Bradley will also leverage the solution to power independent operations for several of its key brands — including Char-Broil, Zebco, Lamplight and WC Bradley Real Estate — for functions ranging from anticipating demand to manufacturing and distribution, a change the company expects will save it millions of dollars over the next five years compared with results from its current Oracle solution.

“Oracle simply couldn’t handle our business needs or take us where we needed to go,” said Jim Poole, vice president and chief information officer of W.C. Bradley. “Just because a company’s business model is complex doesn’t mean that its ERP solution has to be. We expect Microsoft Dynamics GP to provide a whole new layer of capabilities while also being easier to use and far less expensive to operate. The choice seemed pretty clear.” [Read more →]

SAS announced that Canadian National Railway Company (CN) has licensed SAS’ forecasting and budgeting software to accurately predict demand, determine infrastructure requirements to achieve revenue goals, and deliver critical business decision support information to multiple levels across the enterprise.

Tapping the industrial-strength capabilities of SAS forecasting and budgeting software, CN will employ SAS to create and deploy forecasts that will support strategic planning and daily operational decision-making processes. [Read more →]

Sage Software announced today that PeopleCube, the leader in on-demand Human Process Management solutions, is using an integrated SageCRM (customer relationship management)/Sage Accpac ERP (enterprise resource planning)/Sage Accpac Insight system to provide sales forecasting and customer account visibility for its employees located throughout the U.S. and Europe. PeopleCube has achieved significant time and resource reduction in sales forecast and account status reporting since implementing their integrated Sage Software system this past July.”Using our integrated Sage Software business management system, we can gather information for our monthly sales forecasts in a few minutes as opposed to the previous eight or more hours,” said Rick Boyink, PeopleCube vice president for North American sales. “From there, running a variety of reports is similarly just a matter of minutes. The automation our Sage system provides has replaced the manual number crunching that was necessary with our former system.” [Read more →]

MRO Software, an IBM company (NYSE: IBM), today announced that the Antwerp Port Authority has chosen IBM’s Maximo asset management software to manage its operating assets in the port of Antwerp. The contract was awarded after an extensive tender procedure.The Maximo solution is part of the portfolio of solutions from MRO Software, which IBM acquired in October 2006, and is now part of IBM’s Tivoli software unit.

Maximo will support the organization in the overall maintenance and technical management of all operating assets, including tugs and dredgers, cranes, buildings, bridges, locks, docks, roads and the electricity distribution network. More than 750 employees will eventually have access to the solution, which will support all maintenance management processes. The solution covers work order and data management, planning, budgeting, reporting, performance tracking, internal and external outsourcing, purchasing, and stock management. Some adjacent processes will also be handled by Maximo, such as the monitoring of construction and renovation projects, and recording of certain operating data and all purchase orders. [Read more →]

Engineering systems specialist live on CODA’s new financial consolidation system. Less reliance on spreadsheets means less time and effort spent on monthly reports.

CODA Group, the finance software specialist, today announced that global specialist in engineering and computer aided design systems, AVEVA, has implemented its OCRA software to improve Group reporting.

AVEVA wanted to enhance Group financial visibility and improve management information. The company has experienced significant benefits from the new OCRA solution over spreadsheets including a reduction in the time and effort that it takes to produce its monthly reports.

“This has freed up more time for monitoring and reviewing financial information even as the business is experiencing considerable growth,” said Karl Grenz, Group Financial Controller at AVEVA. “We now benefit from a more efficient inter-company reconciliation process and an audit trail running throughout the consolidation process. The budgeting process is also much improved as OCRA enables us to take and hold information from Microsoft Excel which can then be accessed easily for reporting against actuals. The solution helps us define an accurate single view of our global finances.” [Read more →]

Parson Consulting and XLerant have announced a new partnership to ease the stress, anxiety, and exasperation that is often associated with the budgeting and planning process.

“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” notes Joe DeMarco, Managing Director of Parson Consulting. “We do a lot of work in planning and budgeting, and from our standpoint this is the most important innovation in planning and budgeting since the spreadsheet.”

XLerant’s budgeting solution, originally designed for expense budgeting, uses a one-of-a-kind plain English interface to actively engage and assist managers in constructing their budgets. It’s called BudgetPak, and many executives have commented that it “looks more like Turbo-Tax than a spreadsheet, and it’s far easier to use.” [Read more →]

Lawson Software (Nasdaq:LWSN) further strengthened its commitment to the IBM^® System i community worldwide by releasing Lawson 9 on the IBM System i platform, including Lawson 9 upgrade programs and services for existing System i Lawson customers in services industries. Since the late 1970s, Lawson has been building and optimizing applications to run on IBM’s “all-in-one” business computing system and its predecessors. Today’s announcement demonstrates that continued commitment.

“Thousands of Lawson customers and prospects depend on System i to run their businesses reliably and cost-effectively,” said Guenther Tolkmit, senior vice president of product development, Lawson. “That is why it is important to give them access to the same Lawson 9 benefits as our other customers, including industry-standard technology that is leading toward a service-oriented architecture (SOA) and new application enhancements tailored for industry-specific needs.” [Read more →]

QlikTech, a provider of In Memory Reporting and Analysis solutions, announced today that the Belgium Government has selected QlikView, its flagship business intelligence software solution. The Department of Finance, Budget, External Relations and IT in the Brussels Capital Region will utilize QlikView for its budgeting and forecasting analytics.

“Recently, we faced the formidable challenge of compiling an integrated budget for the eight departments in the Brussels Capital Region and the thirteen para-regional institutions on a very tight deadline,” said Deputy Minister Dirk De Smedt. “We needed a way to channel, consolidate and analyze sensitive information from multiple disparate data sources. QlikView proved to be the only solution that was capable of capturing large data sets quickly, while allowing for continuous updates, providing an easy to use interface…and they were able to accomplish all of this in less than two weeks time!” [Read more →]

Epicor in the Middle East, the regional subsidiary of the leading provider of enterprise software solutions for the midmarket and divisions of the Global 1000, Epicor Software Corporation (NASDAQ: EPIC), today announced winning ERP mandate from International Cricket Council (ICC) at the ongoing GITEX 2006, Middle East’s premier IT expo at the Dubai International Exhibition and Convention Centre (DIEC).

Commenting on ICC’s decision to choose Epicor as its technology partner, senior officials of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) major said the implementation will help the cricket entity streamline its business processes with end-to-end visibility at a time of rapid growth in its activities. [Read more →]