Securing Buy-In: Formulated the business case for SAC Planning, visually presenting the transformation roadmap to leadership to secure alignment.
Commercial Negotiation: Successfully negotiated software pricing to ensure a high-ROI implementation.
Strategic Planning: Developed a comprehensive timeline and data strategy that anticipated impacts on existing workflows and resource bandwidth.
2. Architecture & Technical Design
Custom Modeling: Built the SAC models from scratch. Innovated a unique account dimension structure combining GL, Profit Center, and Functional Code to meet highly specific financial presentation requirements (a strategy validated by external SAP consultants).
Tiered Architecture: Designed multiple interconnected models tailored to different business segments, ensuring planning was executed at the optimal level of detail while rolling up to a clean executive summary.
3. Data Ingestion & Automation
Direct Integrations: Set up and scheduled automated SAP BW feeds directly into the new models, applying custom logic and transformations.
AI-Driven Solutions: For non-API systems, leveraged AI to generate custom scripts that automatically converted external flat files into SAC-ready formats, minimizing manual ETL tasks.
4. Change Management & Deployment
Parallel Execution: Managed the entire build and transition while fulfilling day-to-day FP&A responsibilities.
Rigorous Testing: Conducted extensive parallel testing alongside the legacy manual processes. Iteratively addressed data discrepancies until the automated models achieved 100% reconciliation.
Smooth Cutover: Directed a phased rollout in Q1. Pre-built all necessary SAC stories and dashboards, managed user communications, and provided a flexible transition window to ensure high user adoption and minimal business disruption.
Project Outcomes & ROI
Business Impact & ROI
Eliminated Manual ETL Bottlenecks: Eradicated the legacy process of running macros, validating, and manually loading files. This saved up to 10+ hours per week during peak forecasting and budgeting cycles, shifting the team’s focus from data aggregation to strategic analysis.
Unlocked Advanced Financial Capabilities: The new architecture made it possible to execute complex reporting that was previously impossible, including Rolling Forecasts, FX-Neutral versions, granular Site and Segment Planning, and detailed Department Expense tracking.
Empowered the Finance Team: Transitioned users to the new platform through hands-on mentoring. The team quickly adopted the tool after realizing they could perform real-time variance analysis (budget vs. forecast vs. prior month) and instantly drill down into new hierarchies to identify core business drivers.
Governance & Scalability
Bulletproof Data Integrity: Solved historical data quality risks associated with flat-file loads. Implemented rigorous version control within the models, allowing the business to maintain data integrity and seamlessly revert to previous iterations if needed.
Rapid Enterprise Scalability: Proven ability to scale the architecture during M&A and expansion. Successfully onboarded a new entity by utilizing AI to format raw QuickBooks data for immediate ingestion, providing consolidated financials and transaction-level detail from a single source of truth.
Future-Proofed for Advanced Analytics: Established a foundational architecture within the SAC platform that is primed for Phase 2 enhancements, positioning the business to seamlessly enable built-in predictive analytics and machine learning capabilities in the future.
