Since 1859, with the support of many helping hands and driven by the values of respect, compassion, integrity, perseverance, and celebration, Mission Australia (MA) has been standing alongside people with homelessness, offering real hope that has a lasting impact.
Being a not-for-profit, Mission Australia, faced with the challenges such as dynamic industry regulatory requirements, a lack of synergy between financial and strategic planning, manual processes and their effect on timeliness and inefficiencies in reporting. As a result, they embarked on a journey with GK Horizons and Workday Adaptive Planning to replace their outdated Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) system with a new cloud-based planning solution (Enterprise Performance Management – EPM platform).
“We are a not-for-profit business and there are many business models, the key models include personnel, grant funded services, aged Care, Fee for Service, property, IT, and allocations,” Antonia Scorciapino, GM Finance Business Partners, explained, showcasing the diverse areas of operation and the necessity for a versatile planning platform to accommodate the nature of their business.
“Our old system was no longer fit for purpose and was end of life… It took us quite an extensive amount of time to even set up a budgeting and forecasting model,” Antonia highlighted the state of affairs before the transformation.
“We had to start every single time from the beginning…It was just old technology,” Antonia stated, highlighting the need for a platform that could cater to the nuanced demands of their organisation.
Mission Australia chose GK Horizons and Workday Adaptive Planning to implement a new EPM solution after a thorough market analysis, focusing on compatibility, integration capabilities, and cost. GK Horizons’ and Workday Adaptive Planning’s expertise catering in not-for-profits was a highlight of the selection.
Following the successful implementation of the new EPM system, MA experienced a wave of relief. They noticed significant benefits across their organisation, including the setting-up of budgeting and forecasting models reduced from a month to just hours.
“We can set up a budgeting model, a forecast model, any type of version within a couple of hours. It used to take one individual plus an external resource a month of preparation. We’ve now removed the need for an external resource. So that’s a cost saving itself”.
“Productivity improvements are significant in the reporting space, previously we spent a week producing reports, by the time we released the reports we were getting ready for the next month end. With Workday Adaptive Planning, the data for reports are refreshed within hours after the month end close. The focus is on analysis and more time for stakeholder management”.
We look forward to working with Mission Australia and contributing to their mission by helping them plan better!
If you would like to learn more about Mission Australia’s Workday Adaptive Planning implementation, click here to read our case study. Or, if you’re keen to learn more about contributing to MA’s mission, click here to visit their website.
