Sift spent at least 36 days each year aggregating, consolidating and verifying data. These repetitive tasks were not only tedious and time-consuming but also prone to human error, ultimately causing Sift to turn to Adaptive’s partner, Clear Plan, for a better solution.
The automation built into the Adaptive Suite eliminates this wasted time and frees up the team to weigh the pros and cons of more strategic decisions such as a new acquisition.
“Clear Plan has delivered a quick ROI in productivity alone,” said Steven Priscott, CFO at Sift. “We can now have 20 different department leaders working in 20 different areas of our financial process, all simultaneously building a greater whole. The software helps our managers understand the drivers of financial performance and makes sure we’re all working towards improving it. For me personally, I’m able to confidently lead decision-making as a CFO because Adaptive is my evidence-based insight generator. It’s like being able to put your hands on the key business levers to assess what is going on, where we stand financially, and suggest corrective action.”
Furthermore, the solution integrates with Salesforce – Sift’s main data source for its business lines – ensures the company’s weighted sales pipeline is automatically pulled into forecasts, enabling it to precisely analyse the probability of order conversions, as well as extrapolate this data to accurately predict its impact on the whole business.
Clear Plan’s cloud-based technology has also made Sift’s day-to-day operations more unified, as cost and revenue numbers from the company’s general ledger system are seamlessly updated in rolling forecasts and compared to current budgets. In addition, the ability to drill down into individual areas of the business and conduct detailed variance analysis, means that the data is accountable and optimum business performance is delivered on a corporate level.
“Sift has complex revenue streams and it was absolutely critical that it could see all elements of the business and the impact they have on each other,” said Ian Preston, VP sales, UK & Ireland for Adaptive Insights.
“By putting both managers and finance professionals on the same page, we’ve helped Sift not only ensure that all the numbers are correct, but that they are all on track to achieve current objectives and can make the right decisions to stimulate growth. We’re happy to have put Sift in the driving seat of their finances and business performance.”
