Business Finland is the government organization for innovation funding and trade, travel and investment promotion. They promote collaboration between companies and research groups, so that new endeavors can develop into international business ecosystems. Business Finland organization employs 760 specialists at 40 foreign locations and 16 offices in Finland. Business Finland is a public-sector operator and part of the Team Finland network.

Budgeting and forecasting with Excels was laborious

Business Finland used to do budgeting and forecasting in Excel. Switching to a dedicated solution was intended to reduce manual work, save time, and make the process more straightforward and efficient. One of the objectives was also to have one common budgeting solution for the two sides of Business Finland; the agency and the company.

“Excel is good and versatile, but there are some risks. We were always a bit nervous about getting the data transferred correctly from Excel to our reporting system. Our hope was that a dedicated solution would allow us to do more varied and detailed budgeting, as getting rid of the cumbersome Excels would free up time for other things,” says Riikka Rantsi, Controller at Business Finland.

IBM Planning Analytics meets the needs of Business Finland’s budgeting and forecasting

The search for a suitable solution started with an RFP. “We already noticed during the market dialogue that Intito has understood well what we wrote in the RFP. We operate in 40 countries, so the budget has to be adjusted from many angles. We immediately saw that with Planning Analytics we can do what we want and need,” says Kerkko Lamppu, Controller, Business Finland.

Through tendering, IBM Planning Analytics Cloud (LINK) was selected as Business Finland’s new budgeting and forecasting solution. “We had put a lot of effort into the tender process and had carefully defined the requirements. As a result, we definitely got the system and partner we wanted,” delighted Riikka Rantsi says.

Intito worked closely with Business Finland during 2023 to build a budgeting and forecasting solution, including workforce planning, that would meet Business Finland’s needs. Planning Analytics is directly integrated with Business Finland’s data warehouse, which is used to transfer data from other systems to Planning Analytics and from Planning Analytics for reporting. This integration facilitates data management. “We are particularly pleased with the workforce planning built into IBM Planning Analytics. It became very responsive to our needs,” says Tiina Seppelin, Accounting Manager at Business Finland.

Intito is praised for its expertise

Intito’s team is praised by Business Finland for their expertise, easy accessibility, challenging established practices and sharing best practices. “Reachability has been fast and smooth. Intito’s consultants are clearly experts and understand what our goals are and were able to offer options on how to get there,” says Kerkko Lamppu. “I have been involved in many solution renewal projects. This project stands out from the rest because all the consultants involved in the project clearly know the solution like the back of their hands. The flow of information between the consultants in different roles has therefore been effortless,” adds Riikka Rantsi.

End users adopted the new solution without resistance to change

The move from Excels to Planning Analytics made budgeting and forecasting more transparent, clearer, faster, and consistent across the organization. Now the entire finance team works in the same platform. Many manual steps could be reduced, saving time for Business Finland’s experts to analyze figures and do other more value-added work. After one successful budgeting round, the mood is positive. “The time savings will allow us to help cost center owners in the future to produce better quality and more accurate budgets and forecasts,” says Kerkko Lamppu.

“What is significant is that this upgrade is the first and so far the only one of its kind in the sense that our end users have been excited to go into the new solution all by themselves. There was really no resistance to change at all in this first budgeting phase. I have offered to help, but the response has been that the numbers are already there. I think this is an obvious demonstration of the ease of use of IBM Planning Analytics,” says Riikka Rantsi with a smile.

Business Finland plans to further develop the solution after the first round of forecasts

In the past, budgeting has been very centralized and financially driven. In moving to the system, we wanted to engage cost center owners more in budgeting and forecasting. In the spring 2024 forecasting round, we plan to involve them in the process, which will help ease the workload of the finance team. The new solution will have around 80 end users,” says Tiina Seppelin.

“We have been very satisfied with both the system and Intito’s expertise. I can see that we will continue to develop the solution together, and once the first round of forecasts has been completed we will start to think about how we can get even more out of Planning Analytics when considering Business Finland’s overall operations and needs. For example, IT cost planning has been considered as the next target for expansion,” Riikka Rantsi reflects on future plans.