An increasing number of retailers are recognizing the value of cloud-based solutions. Noted benefits include faster speed-to-market, decreased costs and more seamless solution updating processes. In turn, retailers that harness the power of the cloud are equipped to keep pace — and innovate — in an industry that is evolving constantly.
Schurman Retail Group has streamlined internal financial processes significantly since implementing Corporate Performance Management (CPM) cloud-based tools from Adaptive Planning. The solutions empower the finance team to collect, analyze and share relevant financial data for more than 400 stores, according to Gary Kenner, Sr., Financial Analyst at Schurman Retail Group. As a result, the company can analyze, plan and share budgets for all brands more effectively. These brands include: American Greetings, Carlton Cards, NIQUEA.D, Paper Threads and Papyrus.
Because all financial reports and results now are managed in the cloud and accessible online, Schurman Retail Group employees are empowered to constantly track the health of the business, Kenner explained. The finance group utilizes the CPM platform to update department budget figures in real time. Team members also use the tool to develop reports on profit and loss, reconcile payroll data, and streamline reporting and analysis, which has improved report quality and overall business results.
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The cloud-centered tools are “helping us improve budget building and planning processes,” Kenner said in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “Everything we need from a reporting or financial standpoint is easy to access. For example, sometimes team members just want to see how a certain store performed; now we can go into the CPM program, pinpoint that specific location, analyze all expenses, calculate profit and loss, and kick out a report. In five minutes, I can drag and drop the categories I want to compare, quickly do a calculation, and send out the report to the executive asking for it.”
More flexible and easy-to-use financial reporting tools are becoming increasingly valuable as Schurman Retail Group continues to grow. For example, as the company expands into the UK, “we’re utilizing this cloud-based solution to develop reports for all the stores we acquire,” Kenner explained. “The ability to quickly obtain reports, and analyze the business and overall market quickly is very important. In fact, as we continue to expand it will be imperative that we have quick access to data, and can create comprehensive reports that help management make daily decisions that will impact our business.”
Current reporting processes are a vast improvement from past methods, which included updating and managing hundreds of spreadsheets manually, Kenner noted. The Schurman Retail Group finance team utilized a model that included individual spreadsheets — each representing an individual store — as well as linked spreadsheets for the store’s various divisions. This cumbersome strategy was a daunting challenge for employees reconciling data and trying to create more granular reports such as revenues by product SKU.
“It is a lot easier for us to develop budgets for all stores and see profit and loss for locations across all our brands, versus dealing with an overabundance of separate spreadsheets,” Kenner said. “The new system definitely has made our lives a lot easier.”
Furthermore, since Kenner and his team self-administer the cloud solution, they no longer wait for IT staff to solve issues, leading to greater productivity. “Servers fail, drives are unavailable and computers crash,” noted Kenner, “but with a cloud-based solution, as long as the Internet is accessible, my staff and I can still produce.”
With CPM in the cloud, retail team members also can access and update financial reports from anywhere, Kenner added. “ We can use the tool at work or at home, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and never have to worry about access or back-up issues.
