Feeding America Case Study
Feeding America implemented a unified performance management solution that offered them highend functionality, reliability, and increased visibility across their organization - allowing them to eliminate the use of complex spreadsheets in their budgeting efforts.
Industry |
|
Company Info |
|
ROI |
|
|---|
Background
Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest) is the United States' leading domestic hunger-relief charity. The non-profit organization distributes over 2.5 billion pounds of donated food to more than 200 member food banks in the United States and Puerto Rico. Those member food banks support approximately 61,000 local charitable agencies and 70,000 programs, each of which provide food directly to individuals and families in need.
Recognizing the problem
Like many organizations, Feeding America relied heavily on complex electronic workbooks to manage their budgeting requirements. "We used a number of spreadsheets to manage our financial records that we emailed around and, consequently, we had issues of version control and aggregation of data," explained Ron Martin, Director of Budgeting and Financial Reporting. Similarly, productivity became a concern as employees spent time circulating, reviewing, and reformatting the spreadsheets.
As the organization grew and their requirements became more complex, Feeding America realized that a specialized solution could provide greater accuracy and visibility when forecasting and planning long term. "I had experience with budgeting and forecasting tools in a previous life," explained Martin. "I knew there was a solution that would solve our problem and provide the flexibility that we needed to evolve and grow as an organization."
Why Prophix
Feeding America chose Prophix because the solution offered improved analytical functionality, greater visibility for plans, budgets, and forecasts, and enabled them to control costs, impact employee productivity, and support their future growth. Prophix also delivered on an aggressive timeline when rolling out the solution. This required a solid implementation plan with measurable deliverables and responsive support. Prophix's implementation team collaborated with Feeding America to develop a delivery model in time for the beginning of their budgeting cycle, and to ensure successful adoption across the organization's user base. Prophix leveraged the power of Microsoft SQL Server technology to seamlessly integrate with Feeding America's existing systems, providing a consistent and constant link to their data sources in Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
Benefits
Feeding America quickly realized the benefits of the Prophix solution. Employees no longer struggled to enter complex formulas or manage the multiple versions of financial spreadsheets circulating through company emails. As Martin says, "With a centralized solution, you make data available using security permissions, rather than mailing forty different budget files and collecting forty back." He also appreciates the support that the centralized cell notes offer to the budgeting process and the customized reporting that provides Feeding America with visibility into the overall health of the business and a forward looking view of companywide performance. "We didn't have that before," explains Martin.
Feeding America's users also noticed the benefits of the Prophix implementation. According to Martin, "All levels of the department, from administrators to executives, use the application." As the company's early adopters use additional functionality, Martin anticipates that the number of users will continue to grow and the solution's benefits will spread throughout the organization. Martin believes that the advantages that Prophix provides will become more significant as the organization begins to slice and dice the data - reformulating information in reports and forecasting efforts - so that the department can drill down into the data and experiment with planning projections.
Future plans
Feeding America aims to use their newfound forecasting abilities in order to develop a long-term view of the organization's progress. They also plan to develop a model to project revenues and track and reforecast more frequently.