Multiple Instances

The Multiple Instance functionality is designed to support the complex planning and reporting requirements of companies that manage autonomous organizations.

An Adaptive Planning instance is a self-contained financial model that includes all elements necessary to plan, report on, and analyze a business. The Multiple Instance functionality enables companies to set up, link together, and manage multiple Adaptive Planning instances.

Multiple Instances are a particularly strong fit for:

• Global companies
• Complex enterprises with multiple independent lines of business
• Companies analyzing and integrating M&A targets
• Holding companies and investment management firms that manage a portfolio of operating companies
• Companies with independent functional processes, such as sales planning and analysis, and HR planning and analysis
• Companies with separate planning processes, such as long-range, top-down strategic planning, and shorter-term, bottom-up budgeting and forecasting

Using Multiple Instances, a centralized headquarters organization of a complex company can provide each entity or function with an individual Adaptive Planning instance. Each organization can then create and administer its own independent model, complete with its own unique organizational hierarchy, chart of accounts structure, user base, data entry requirements, and back-end integration. Alternatively, headquarters can create and administer these separate models.

Within the broader organization, multiple instances can be linked together. Data designated as to be shared automatically consolidates from “child” instances to the “parent” instance. Unshared data remains private at the child instance.

Key Features

• Independent or unique organizational structures, cyclicality, fiscal years, charts of accounts, dimensions, versions, users, permissions, data entry templates, and integration with other systems, for each instance
• Specification of which data is shared or kept private to the instance
• Unlimited number of instances and levels of hierarchy
• Automatic consolidation of data from child instances to parent
• Data drill-down from parent to child instance, with ability to toggle seamlessly between instances

Key Benefits

Streamline Planning and Analysis for Complex Organizations

• Decreased planning and reporting cycle times, both at headquarters and within each organization
• Simplified headquarters administration, due to elimination of need to coordinate and consolidate large numbers of spreadsheets
• Increased flexibility in consolidating different versions from different organizations, e.g. Low Revenue Division A and High Revenue Division B
• Improved decision-making, based on more accurate and timely information

Preserve Organizational Autonomy

• Different planning and reporting requirements allowed across organizations
• Different timelines for re-planning, re-forecasting, and creating what-if scenarios allowed across organizations
• Flexibility of each organization to determine how much information needs to be shared with other organizations, and with the parent company
• Decreased risk when rolling out to various business units due to the option of phasing deployments over time

Integrate Strategic and Operational Planning

• Increased flexibility in consolidating high-level, long-term strategic plans with more detailed, bottom-up operational plans
• Different timelines and level of detail allowed across strategic and operational plans
• Elimination of one-size-fits-all approaches and unnecessarily complex single models

Multi-Entity Planning & Analysis Solution

The Multi-Entity Planning & Analysis solution is the ideal starting point for deploying Adaptive Planning’s powerful multi-instance capability within large, complex organizations.

Multi-Organization Planning Challenges

Spreadsheet-based budgeting, forecasting, and reporting processes create significant challenges for companies of all sizes -- they’re extremely slow and error-prone, create numerous version management problems, and are inherently non-collaborative. These challenges increase exponentially in large, complex, multi-organization corporations, which typically have multiple sub-organizations with different structures, hierarchies, business cycles, and reporting and planning needs. In such an environment – with hundreds or thousands of participants and spreadsheets – consolidating, reporting on, and analyzing actual and plan data becomes extremely challenging.

How It Works

The Multi-Entity Planning & Analysis Solution leverages Adaptive Planning’s breakthrough Multiple Instance functionality. An Adaptive Planning instance is a self-contained financial model that includes all elements necessary to plan, report on, and analyze a business. The Multiple Instance capability enables companies to set up, link together, and manage multiple Adaptive Planning instances, and to coordinate planning and reporting among multiple autonomous organizations. This solution is a bundle of instances and user seats, offered as a starting point to make it easy and affordable for companies to get started with deploying multiple instances.

Streamline Planning and Analysis in Complex Organizations

The Multi-Entity Planning & Analysis solution allows complex organizations to fundamentally transform their financial planning, reporting, and analysis, and decrease their planning times by up to 90%. They can dramatically decrease planning and reporting cycle times throughout the entire organization – at the headquarters level, and within each organization. They can simplify headquarters administration, by eliminating the need to coordinate and consolidate large numbers of spreadsheets. And they can make better decisions, based on more accurate and timely information.

Preserve Organizational Autonomy

Different and autonomous organizations within a complex organization can meet their own planning and reporting requirements, independent of how other organizations plan. Organizations can determine how much information needs to be shared with other organizations, and with the parent company. Different lines of business can have their own timelines for re-planning, re-forecasting, and creating what-if scenarios.

Even within smaller companies, different functional organizations such as Sales and HR may have completely different planning needs. For example, the Sales organization’s plan may be driven from top-down sales targets, sales reps’ individual quotas, or historical detail of sales by product and customer. HR planning typically focuses on headcount detail and benefits choices. Treasury planning may include detailed debt schedules. In such an organization, each function can plan in its own unique instance, and they can be quickly consolidated at the parent instance level.

Integrate Strategic and Operational Planning

Corporate strategic planning is typically done top-down, at a high level, with a long-term time horizon, such as the next five years. Operational planning, on the other hand, is usually done bottom-up, in a great level of detail, with a shorter time-horizon, such as the next 18 months. Organizations can use different instances with different levels of detail, planning approaches, and time-horizons, and then easily integrate them. This eliminates the need for one-size-fits-all approaches and unnecessarily complex all-inclusive models. It also provides a way for companies to ensure that their operational plans support and are aligned with their strategic plans.

Deploy in Phases to Ensure Success

Companies can deploy this solution in phases, breaking what may be a complex challenge into manageable pieces, and decreasing risk by rolling out to various business units over time. They can also develop new instance models for unique business units without affecting existing business unit models.

Customizable Configurations

The Multi-Entity Planning & Analysis solution provides the ideal starting point for deploying the Adaptive Planning multiple instance capability within a large, complex organization. The solution is available in customizable configurations, which include a core set of instances, administrators, and users that are typically required for managing multi-organization planning and reporting processes.