Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has been able to slash the time required to complete their budget process by 40 per cent. And this is just one of the many benefits of an Enterprise Performance Management system.
Founded in 1947, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is widely known for its expertise and efforts in helping cancer patients. With one main campus in Boston and four satellite centres located in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, it is estimated Dana-Farber annually directs more than 700 clinical trials at its main campus alone while overseeing nearly 260,000 outpatient and infusion visits.
Potential growth equates to more responsibilities plus more problems
As a result of the sheer patient volume during the past decades, their business procedural problems become more prominent to the extent a streamlined and automated budget process is urgently needed to accommodate such development.
Both the Vice President of Financial Planning and Operations at Dana-Farber have complained of the lengthy, slow, out-dated and error-prone system that they were using. Moreover, managing various types of costs, budgets and expenses across all 5 offices and 35 cost centres has made financial management a critical issue.Read more:What to look for in a planning and budgeting solution?
After an extensive review, Dana-Farber concluded that the new system must possess the ability to act as one common automated, paperless source for all budget components in addition to being a real-time, web-based and user-friendly system that is easily accessible at any given time.
Of all the options proposed, Dana-Farber chose Infor Enterprise Performance Management (Infor EPM) – formerly known as Infor Corporate Performance Management (Infor CPM)
Marlena Ward, VP financial planning at Dana-Farber, commented on the choice: “The patient revenue model used in the healthcare industry is completely different from other industry models, and Infor CPM gave us confidence that it could provide this capability best.”
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The long-awaited system update brought more benefits than expected
Significantly cut the time and cost
Dana-Farber began to see significant improvements within months of implementing Infor EPM. The time required to complete their budget cycle has been reduced from 5 months to just 3 months.
The redundant manual tasks have been replaced with the automatic process; there is no longer the need for face-to-face revision of multiple versions of every proposal. Department directors can now submit their budgets and get instant feedback while they are still working on them.
All directors across 35 cost centres now have quality data, both up-to-date and historical, right at their fingertips. The time allocated for budget reports was reduced from 2 weeks to just 3 to 4 days, a huge time-saver for both end users and the back office.
The time saved on making budgets now can be utilised for other critical issues within the organisation, such as analysing data and managing their operations.
Read more:Automating financial forecasting for hotels with cloud-based systems
As a result, key decisions can be made much sooner, enabling the organisation to produce an actionable P&L statement within hours after the budget system is closed for input. These improvements have greatly enhanced the organisation’s financial accountability and business performance.
Cut down paper wastage, be more eco-friendly
Previously, each of the 35 hospital cost centres at Dana-Farber would submit at least 20 sheets of paper per cycle; imagine how much paper they would have to go through in a year. Now, everything can be done online; directors can virtually see the updated version while their staff is still editing with just one mouse click. The decline in paper usage has tremendously made the organisation much more eco-friendly.
Easily adaptable system
The previous reporting system used by Dana-Farber did not meet the organisation’s needs and wants. Therefore, as part of the expansion plan, Dan-Farber decided to develop a data warehouse system that can link with Infor Dynamic Enterprise Performance Management. In order to ensure the end solution works properly, Dana-Farber’s internal team partnered with Infor to customise the data warehouse and enable drill-down into the data mart.
Positive feedbacks from staff
One of the benefits of the new system is that it provides an Excel feel, so users can get used to it faster with minimal training. Employees are now comfortable explaining any variance, as it takes just 30 seconds from sign-in to finding the needed information at the invoice level and payment level.
Your business can definitely benefit from the endless possibilities and capabilities that the Infor EPM system offers. Still feeling sceptical? Talk to one of TRG’s experts or request a free demo today!
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