TBA, 2010

Advanced Calculations for Forecasting and Driver Based Budgeting
November 19-20, 2009
Spring, 2010
New York , NY

For many companies the annual budget is the single biggest investment in improving business performance. Most companies’ budgets are adequate for financial control but relatively few can be used for powerful strategic planning. In addition, in most cases the process is more time-consuming and labor intensive than necessary. So how can we make the process more strategic and at the same time make it faster and easier? The answer lies in improving the calculation logic.

Essbase calculations can be used to:
- reduce effort by providing managers automatic “baseline” forecasts as a starting point
- implement more frequent re-forecasts or continuous planning
- link budgeting to strategy by focusing on strategic drivers
- implement driver-based budgeting

In this course you will learn the Essbase functions and structures that are most important for forecasting, projections and budgeting. Then you will apply your new skills to hands-on examples including:

• Revenue
• Workforce Expenses
• Direct Costs
• Other Indirect Costs
• Linking budgets to strategy
• Continuous Planning
• Currency Conversion

Last you will apply the techniques to your own budget models and leave the course with tangible progress toward implementing the techniques at your company.

Prerequisites:

-Essbase Bootcamp or equivalent including basic calculations
Note: MTG also offers basic calculations and calculations refresher courses to prepare you for this class.

Itinerary:

DAY 1: We present calc material relevant to your specific requirements.
DAY 2: We assist you in applying the new material to your applications.

Course Outline:

Introduction
• Defining business objectives
• Gap analysis

Defining Requirements
• Needs analysis method and checklist
• Financial control requirements
• Forecasting requirements
• Strategic requirements
• Other requirements

Best Practices for Optimization, Design and Data Integrity
• Data suitability
• Usability and useful output
• Maintenance
• Optimization
• Data Integrity

Outline Design Examples
• Basic designs
• View dimensions
• Multi-cube designs
Revenue
• Exponential smoothing
• Regression
• Sales pipeline
• Burn rate
• Penetration curves
• Spline

Direct Costs
• Regression
• Lookup cubes

Workforce Expenses
• Top-outs
• Step Functions

Continuous Planning and Rolling Forecasts

Currency Conversion

Linking Budgets to Strategy
• DCF: Key Value Drivers

Techniques and Functions covered include:
• Rolling Forecasts
• Burn rate modeling
• Step Functions
• Sales pipeline modeling
• Exponential smoothing
• Regression
• Workforce overhead forecasting
• Controlling block creation
• Automatic baseline forecasts
• View Dimensions
• Lookup cubes
• S-curves (penetration curves)
• Rule of 78
• @XRANGE
• @TREND
• @CORRELATION
• Custom macros
• @XREF
• @SPLINE
• @MDSHIFT

Your Registration Includes:

-Instruction
-Course manual
-Up to 2 hours of follow-up problem solving support

Cost:

-$1500.

Call or E-Mail us at training@mtgny.com for additional information.

Also available as a PRIVATE ON-SITE CUSTOM WORKSHOP. Call for rates.