Can SaaS Keep Your Budget and Planning Processes from Becoming Victims of the Economy?

As I sit writing this blog today, the Dow industrial index has just hit a 5 year low. The natural reaction of many businesses in times like now is to back off any plans for process improvement especially if it involves technology. Conventional wisdom is to “make do” with your existing processes regardless of their ineffectiveness or inefficiency. However, a company’s ability to effectively plan and navigate rough economic times is critical to if and how it survives this economy.

Now you can call me biased but it seems to me that today’s economic situation is exactly why Corporate Performance Management Software-as-a-Service makes more sense than ever. To set the stage, let’s talk about those poor souls trying to slog through another year building their corporate budgets using Excel spreadsheets. Businesses will be taking multiple passes through their budgets as reductions in spending and hiring make the planning process a study in backward iteration and reverse engineering. Pity the poor budgeting or planning professional who will have to manage their spreadsheet-based budgeting systems through multiple passes collecting data, checking it for accuracy, aggregating the budgets and then running and distributing reports and dashboards. I can see all those “#Div/0!” errors now. Those of you who do this know what I am talking about… late hours, long weeks, unhappy budget constituents, stressed executives and a constant flow of requests for “another pass at the budget” or the ability to evaluate another possible outcome.

The above only focuses on the existing budget process stretched to accommodate a tough economy. It doesn’t address the proactive planning a company needs to survive. The above method focuses on “planning to the budget” rather than “budgeting to the plan.” Typically during these times, strategically managed companies make decisions based on known facts and financial models, while other companies just shoot from the hip. I’m sure stakeholders and stockholders don’t appreciate the shoot from the hip approach.

So where does SaaS fit into this scenario and how does it help? A SaaS-based solution is the most cost-effective and fastest way to improve your budgeting and planning processes. It allows you to “budget to the plan.” Imagine being able to shed your complicated and error-prone budgeting spreadsheets for a better way to run multiple iterations of your budget in a fraction of the time and automatically implement a methodology that results in more accurate data and calculations. Also, because SaaS-based services are purchased on a per user monthly subscription basis, it’s only an operating expense; no capital purchases are required, it doesn’t require any IT resources, and it leverages your existing knowledge of Excel. In a tough economy when cash is king, the cost for such a system for 25 users can be less than ¼ of an analyst FTE cost.

SaaS was designed for tough economic times like we have today. So if your budget process really needs to improve and your business has gone into capital spending and hiring shutdown, a SaaS-based budgeting solution may be exactly what you need. Think about it.