Upgrading your technology is hard, and having a roadmap is a great help. In the AFP 2020 presentation, Create Your Own Crystal Ball: Getting the Data Validity You Need, Frederick Kurniadi, director of sales at GitLab, and Rebecca Baril, financial analyst at Sunquest Information Systems, discussed how their companies improved technology to accelerate cycle times for planning, reporting and analytical processes with moderator Kerman Lau, VP of Finance at Workday.

Kurniadi and Lau took questions from attendees on these technology upgrades.

What would you say is the biggest lesson learned when implementing the new tool to address change management and ensure you had the proper design?

Kurniadi: A few aspects: 1) Thinking about what the final design would be, 2) Keeping the system simple enough, but scalable for future builds 3) Excel and the system work differently. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each tool are very helpful.

Lau: Another thing is to get the right people involved in your design process and make sure you're capturing the voice of the various stakeholders. This will improve adoption and create the right accountability down the road.

FP&A has invited the other divisions to give their input on their needs/wants from a new system. Senior management is hesitant to act upon on this self-service aspect. Their thought is “why change now? I can get the data from finance.”

Lau: Yes, I see this a lot and it's going to be a journey for the finance team. I would encourage you to keep at it and I'm confident there's a shift in thinking that's happening across many companies.

Kurniadi: I agree with Kerman here. To your point, it goes back to the company's culture also. For self-service to work, you also need to sell them on other things that they could quickly get from the new system. It's definitely a journey!

The finance team is implementing better reporting tools and business processes, but the buy-in from senior leadership, the division heads primarily, is less than 100%. The power users are finance and IT. How do you push the "self-service" aspect to staff who are resistant to a more modernized system?

Kurniadi: It's definitely a journey that needs to be walked together with the other departments (during vendors evaluation stage, implementation, UAT, etc.). I would recommend getting a personalized demo from your vendor if possible; they could gather your requirements and create a custom demo for you.

Lau: This is where the right platform for your organization is key. In order for self-service to work, the platform has to be easy and intuitive for non-power users. Another thing to think through is understanding the problem and the value any solution might bring.

Did you find any specific and unique challenges during COVID forecasting?

Kurniadi: Definitely. A lot of uncertainties and a lack of benchmarks/data points at the very beginning. We also needed to do a re-plan and kept fine-tuning our assumptions along the way (and we still do that now). A flexible system that could help you to do this is very crucial. We erred on the side of "How do we take care of our people and what's the right thing to do?" when we needed to make decisions in the past.

After implementing cloud-based planning software, are there any best practices for keeping the FP&A team up to date on new functionality?

Kurniadi: I would recommend that you connect with your customer success manager. Adaptive's CSM helped me with new resources, free reviews, as well as sending me useful notes from time to time. I also recommend that you review release notes, as well as go to conferences to share notes with others (such as the AFP Conference).

Lau: I've found that FP&A roundtables are a very good way to hear what's top of mind for my peers. Another thing is conferences like this one where you can interact with others and attend sessions.

Listen to the full session here.