NAVIGATEAn Integrated Planning, Budgeting & Reporting System by

Client Solution Case Study

Intuitive opensky solution transforms the annual global budgeting process at Enterprise Ireland into a faster, easier and more collaborative business workflow with increased financial accuracy, less cost and deeper insight.

Navigate An Integrated Budgeting and Reporting System Client Solution Case Study - Enterprise Ireland2

At a GlanceClient: Enterprise Ireland

Industry: Government

Country: Ireland

Solution Suite: Large / Medium Enterprise Solutions

Located in Dublin, Ireland, Enterprise Ireland is the Irish government agency responsible for supporting Irish businesses in the manufacturing and internationally traded service sectors. Enterprise Ireland reports to the Department of Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation and is financed by Exchequer Grant and income generated from its activities.

■ Over €300m Annual Funding 2012

■ 720 staff

■ over 200 project budgets annually

■ 120 global cost centres

■ Over 100 budget data submissions

■ 10 Finance Account Managers

■ 9 regional offices

■ 4 major cost categories

> opensky made it easy to do business with them by being very precise in showing us how they were going to meet our requirements. They implemented the agreed solution quickly and with minimal interruption to our business process. Their support and service level agreement in place has been excellent and the opensky support team have been very efficient in responding to questions or enhancement requests. I highly recommend openskys Integrated

Budgeting & Reporting System <

Bernard Folan, Section Manager, Responsible for Global Budget Co-ordination, Enterprise Ireland.

T: 01 727 2000 www.enterprise-ireland.com

The Results

60% Reduction in Annual Costs of Budgeting Software*based on existing licence structure

60%

€€

€

positive feedback from users

Return on Investment Achieved within 3 years

Significant Reduction in helpdesk calls

Reduction from 100 individual monthly reports to 1

Navigate An Integrated Budgeting and Reporting System Client Solution Case Study - Enterprise Ireland 3

Drivers of Change

■ Enterprise Ireland’s previous

budgeting and reporting system,

Oracle Financial Analyser (OFA)

was de-supported in 2010.

■ There was a high level of admin

input required to get access to

transaction level information

via another supported product

(Discoverer reports).

■ Enterprise Ireland had a

requirement to provide business

managers with easier access to

information on budgeting and

forcecasting commitments.

■ A more dynamic trading

environment that necessitated

two mid-year budget reviews and

reforecasting.

The Business NeedIn 2011 Enterprise Ireland issued a request for tender from suitable qualified

companies for the supply and implementation of a budget management system as

the legacy system in use had reached its end of life cycle. The budget management

solution would be an integral component of Enterprise Irelands budgeting/

reporting framework and crucial in the delivery of key financial information. The key

functional requirements included the preparation of the annual budget, preparation

of monthly management accounts, departmental budget monitoring and variance

analysis. Other critical aspects of the solution would be that it was cost effective,

user-friendly, fast, and intuitive with access to real time critical data.

Why opensky? > High cost savings [Reaslised]

> Tried & Trusted Reference Sites

> Clear Methodology of Delivery

> Broad range of Technology Skills

> Extensive support SLA

The Benefits to Enterprise Ireland ■ Leaner administration of departmental budget reports, reducing the number

of Excel reports from 100 to 1, saving Enterprise Ireland days on data input,

aggregation and dissemination

■ Faster calculations and more intuitive user experience that mirrored Enterprise

Irelands budgeting and reporting process flow at each level

■ Seamlessly interfaces with existing Financial Accountancy System - which

assured operational business continuity for Finance teams but with a higher

level of budgeting and reporting system capabilities

■ Business intelligence Dashboards of analytical measures/KPI’s gives the

management team in Enterprise Ireland enterprise wide visibility to realtime

budget performance updates, including variances, remaining balances,

consolidated performances and provides a powerful set of utilities to allow

for day to day budget management

Navigate An Integrated Budgeting and Reporting System Client Solution Case Study - Enterprise Ireland4

> By migrating 10 years of financial data from Oracle, the end users were given an immediate value add by having the ability to perform historical analysis on data that was previously difficult and cumbersome

to interact with. <

William Flanagan,

Chief Technology Officer, opensky

A SUMMARY OF THE SOLUTIONNavigate: A Budgeting & Reporting System by opensky provided the answers to Enterprise Irelands budgeting challenges. Navigate is a web enabled, collaborative Microsoft Office based solution that manages large organisational budgeting and planning processes. Integrating fully with all standard ERP and Financial Systems ie Oracle, Sun, Ifor, SAP. Navigate speeds up and simplifies the budgeting process and improves planning accuracy at all levels.

Data Integration & WarehousingWilliam Flanagan, CTO at opensky describes the implementation. “Our Navigate solution was designed to co-exist with any financial system, including Oracle Financials. The Chart of Accounts General Ledger structure, invoice actuals and commitments are integrated in to Navigate so as to be completely transparent to both the end users and the system administrators.

Budgeting Module An easy to use Windows based interface for data collection purposes reduces training requirements. The ability to import and export budget data to and from Excel remains. Crucially, the solution provides end users with an array of in-built utilities to allow them to profile budgets accurately, simply and with minimum of line entry. Because of the unified database, a fully consolidated view of the budgets is always available to Finance Managers, which when coupled with the workflow. Historical budget submissions are maintained and available for analysis purposes, and a full audit of all versions of the budget is maintained in

the database. Web enabled workflow and

online collaborative tools, gives higher

visibility to reasons supporting budget

submissions.

Report & AnalysisThe solution creates a suite of standard reports with featured enhanced “At a Glance” weekly, monthly and annual reports and performance dashboards. Powerful self-service analytics provides the end user with access to a simple drag and drop report builder and can be shared with selected colleagues.

Standard formatting features i.e exceptional variances in red font etc. are built into the application. Reports are viewable online (i.e HTML) and can be exported to Excel, PDF,Word etc. Search and pivot report capability is included. Budget Holders can choose to automatically email or share the reports with defined users throughout the hierarchy, at a certain time. An additional forecasting module to predict future performance based on certain scenarios and powerful algorithms is optional and provides useful data for resource planning and goal setting.

“The system opensky implemented was an excellent fit with our specified requirements. The solution leveraged elements of our existing technology infrastructure and interfaced seamlessly with our accounting system. Significant benefits have been achieved, notably in the streamlined administration of the departmental budget reports, user and security management, and enhanced BI capabilities e.g. excel cube reporting for variance analysis, drilling to transactional detail. As with the budget data collection tool, feedback from end users of the reporting services has been very positive” reported Folan.

> Process is much simplified - with direct access to all budget information, including drill to detail. Fewer Help Desk calls, lower costs and much improved user experience in terms of the interface, usability etc. Budget data is quickly and easily

exportable to Excel etc. <

Deirdre Mc Donough,

Department Manager, Business Process Improvement & IT, Enterprise Ireland

ISO 9001

TM

CERTIFICATIONEUROPE

opensky Data Systems,

Unit 8, Osprey Business Campus,

Naas, Co Kildare, Ireland.

www.openskydata.com

Realised By: opensky Data Systems

opensky are in the business of realising visions. Since

its inception in 2004 opensky has evolved to become

one of the most pioneering IT solution companies in

the marketplace. With offices in Ireland and Poland, we

are a European challenger brand to global software giants

that harnesses the power in data technology for large

enterprise growth and civic progress.

For demonstrations (online/onsite/offsite) and further

information - Brendan Dunne, +353 83 1729655

or +353 45 855 675 or info@openskydata.com

Further case studies, client testimonials and company

details visit www.openskydata.com

> The budget data collection solution delivered is user-friendly, fast and meets with all our functional requirements.

The tool is now used extensively throughout the organisations national and international network of departments for budget data preparation and submission. Feedback from all users of the budget data collection tool has been very positive. <

Bernard Folan,

Section Manager, Responsible for Global Budget Co-ordination, Enterprise Ireland

Enterprise Ireland Offices at The Plaza, Eastpoint Business Park, Dublin 3

Photo Credit: Peter Moloney