Very Large Spreadsheet Modeling vs. OLAP Planning Process – Are you kidding?

As I speak with FP&A leaders, I find that many planning groups still rely on the good ol’ spreadsheet process for modeling. I can’t blame most folks. If the models are relatively small, under 20 spreadsheets and up to a couple hundred thousand intersections, that is the most flexible and low cost approach.  In fact, some modeling and analysis will always be done in spreadsheets, as there is no other tool that replicates that desktop functionality.

What happens to those very large scaled spreadsheet models used by medium to larger companies?  If we are talking about hundreds of tabs across dozens to hundreds of spreadsheets, isn’t Excel turning into a database without the benefit of it having true database functionality and performance capabilities?  Under this case, is the risk of formula errors across millions of cells increasing? Would there be linking refresh issues with spreadsheets? Would there be issues with maintaining the model’s structure in the spreadsheet form, including adding modeling fields (dimensions) that could take days to weeks to add? Would one want the ability for more than one user at a time to interface and manipulate data at a time? Would one worry about the spreadsheet corrupting?  Would one worry about not having the flexibility in a database that one has with spreadsheets?

If you answered “Yes” to these questions, you are missing an opportunity to take your planning functions (more…)

The Impact of 2015 IFRS Adoption on Financial Systems

On February 24, 2010, the SEC approved the earliest possible adoption of IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) to replace GAAP in 2015. The comment period continues as various U.S. public companies are cotemplating the impacts to their financials. A key element Finance organizations need to consider is the impact to all their systems, from ERP to BI.

Why consider this now, if there several years to prepare? There are at least a couple of important reasons……

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Dissimilar Oracle Essbase Cube-to-Cube Data Replication Without Partitions

To accommodate large financial modeling requirements, OLAP processes are ideally suited to crunch large amounts of data very quickly and storing that data in a staged manner as the modeling assumptions are applied. I like the idea of each finance group, shown as separate channel cubes in my illustration below, having their own cubes to model historical data and arrive at forecast outputs.  And within each channel, it’s common that each group’s models have different dimensionality.

Source and Target BSO Cubes with Different Dimensions

The for the Finance Planning process owner,  how to consolidate all theses cubes can be challenge. Oracle Essbase has very useful transparent and replicated partitioning available for (BSO) Block Storage Option and ASO (Aggregate Storage Option) cubes. But that functionality doesn’t work where the source cube and the target cubes do not have the exact same dimensions. For those dimensions that are common, users want to be able to consolidate them, including dimensions like time, accounts, channel, products, etc.  

Replicating Data from Oracle BSO to ASO cubes

In addition replicating data from an BSO cube, where models are generated, to ASO target cubes, where all the model results are calculated and rolled-up cannot occur. BSO and ASO have different storage kernels. 

The best approach I’ve found is as follows:

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Role of the Process Owner in Finance Initiatives

Traditional FP&A Financial Analysts have in the past been tasked with implementing new EPM technology with limited success.  Recently, the emerging role of Process Owners in successful EPM initiatives has become more main stream.

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