Improving Financial Performance

Investaura, the expert advisors for the ICT markets, are pleased to present three software solutions to plan, analyse and improve financial performance: Adaptive Planning, STEM and Prodacapo.

Mid-size and large companies have complex needs, and many practitioners are on the lookout for more powerful and professional tools. In the past, Microsoft Excel has often been used by default, but not by choice. Thousands of financial professionals and technical experts worldwide still use Excel for their work, building ‘monster’ models that are difficult to maintain and evolve, and that often contain errors, small and large. The situation is rarely satisfying, neither for them nor for their senior management team. This is where we can help. The following professional software solutions have proved their strengths on countless customer assignments:

Adaptive Planning, from Adaptive Insights.

Financial controllers and FP&A professionals love Adaptive, an easy-to-learn solution that they use to prepare their short-term Budget and their 3-5 year Plan in a single solution and as part of a unified process. Adaptive brings the power of a multi-dimensional database (GL accounts, cost centres, products, customers, regions, time periods, etc) and multi-user access in a collaborative environment.

Read the following Case Study or Watch the video.


STEM from Implied Logic.

STEM is a bottom-up Business Planning and Business Modelling tool used by corporate strategists, regulators and technical professionals working in the telecoms, technology and infrastructure industries. With STEM, you can build detailed models of networks and operations in no time. STEM also comes built-in with advanced cost allocation features, so it can be used to analyse the profitability of assets, products and customer segments, and optimise TCO.

Discover STEM on Investaura´s web site or read a Case study on Outsourcing, Managed Services and Infrastructure sharing.

STEM


For Process Costing and Improvement, Investaura uses the Prodacapo software solution.

Performance managers and Process experts love Prodacapo for its ability to capture their business detail, as well as their financial and commercial historical data. Prodacapo enables an organisation to understand product, service and customer profitability, to manage costs and improve operational efficiency. Prodacapo´s industry-specific solution for service providers also includes the eTOM business-process framework up to Level 3 (with about 350 processes).

Download the White Paper explaining how the software has successfully been implemented for a client over a 5-week period, or browse a demo model.

PerformanceManagementShade

Investaura is a gold-certified partner for all three software solutions. Our experts are here to help you identify the professional solution that matches your exact requirements. Since 1995, we have assisted our ICT clients, professionalised and improved their complex models, and help them generate deep insights into their business. Why not you?

Feel free to contact us and request a demo of Adaptive Planning, Prodacapo, or STEM.

Landmark project for a telco in MEA: Fixed Asset Valuation (IFRS 13)

Investaura has recently completed a fixed asset revaluation project for a major telecom service provider operating in multiple countries in the MEA region.

The project was undertaken over a 3-month period and looked into $1bn of fixed assets in the following asset classes: Land, Building, Towers, Telecoms equipment, Software, Spectrum and licences.

Investaura’s Network Operations Transformation model is now on the Web

Investaura has released a white paper re-visiting the financial benefits of managed services and infrastructure sharing for telcos. Building on an initial discussion and review of the relevant approaches and options available, a top-down financial simulation model has been developed to analyse and quantify the benefits of alternative options available to communications service providers (CSPs).

The model that Investaura and Implied Logic have developed looks into four transformation levers that can improve the economics of the mobile carrier and potentially create considerable value:

Re-visiting the financial benefits of Managed Services and Infrastructure Sharing

Read our latest White Paper and learn more about the following topics:

  • Managed Services / Outsourcing
  • Infrastructure Sharing (Passive, Active) / TowerCo business
  • Vendor financing, Leasing (Finance lease, Operating lease), Sale & Leaseback
  • Financial Simulation, Top-Down Modelling
  • Telecom Economics, OPEX reduction, CAPEX reduction, Value creation

Abstract:

Communications service providers (CSPs) in developed markets are facing considerable challenges. While voice markets are saturated in most countries, 3G/4G network rollouts require large investments, which are not always commensurately compensated by increases in revenues; data traffic is exploding but revenue per Mbyte is often decreasing faster than cost per Mbyte. The overall impact is that both EBIDTA and EBIT margins are decreasing.

Budgeting, Business Planning and Service Costing in a box: the first easy-to-use solution a post-Excel world

Do you still use Microsoft Excel for Budgeting, Business Planning or Performance Management? Microsoft Excel was good for the job 10-15 years ago, but Excel also has its limits, and you probably have come across many of them already. In particular, Excel is not a database!

Today, very powerful, easy-to-use, and affordable solutions are available on the market that can set you apart as Manager, and truly help improve your company’s performance. If you are a Financial Planning Manager at a mid-size or large company, and still use Excel for Budgeting and Forecasting, then you’ve got quite a bit of catch up to do. And most likely you know that.

Business Planning, Budgeting and Costing in a box: the first end-to-end solution for telecoms service providers

Investaura Management Consultants, the telecoms consultancy specialized in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, are pleased to announce the launch of the first end-to-end Business Planning, Budgeting and Activity-Based Costing (ABC) solution for telecoms service providers. The solution was built on the Adaptive Planning platform from Adaptive Insights Inc, the world leader in Budgeting, Forecasting and Reporting. The solution combines the power of Adaptive Insights ‘Software as a Service’ platform with Investaura’s unique understanding of the needs of telecoms operators in both developing and mature markets.

To demonstrate how telecom service providers can use Adaptive Planning, Investaura has developed a fully functioning application that contains all the building blocks found in Budgeting solutions used by telecom operators. The application can easily be customized for service providers of any size, including mobile, fixed, and cable TV operators. It requires next to no IT support for its roll-out within our customers’ organizations.

Winning the war against churn: how to use churn prediction techniques to improve customer retention

There is no question that churn is the plague of the telecom industry.  In the mobile business, annual churn rate of 20%-30% are standard.  In developing countries, churn can be as high as 60% per annum.  Do you know any other industry where companies lose 20%-60% of their customers between the 1st of January and the 31st of December?

High levels of churn are the results of both the supply-side and demand-side peculiarities of telecom service providers.  On the supply side, operators engage in intense marketing activities, launching new tariffs, handsets and promotions on a continuous basis to lure end-users to their own service offering. On the demand side, barriers to switch are very low: SIM cards are mostly free, prepaid customers usually do not have to provide much information, and in countries where Mobile Number Portability has been implemented, customers can take their phone number with them to their new service provider.

But if churn is the plague, you don’t have to be fatalistic. Tomorrow’s winners will be service providers that better understand what customers want and better anticipate how customers will behave. This applies to churn as well and raises questions such as: can we forecast which customers are likely to churn in the near future? Can we explain churn? Can we retain customers who are about to churn?

Yes, we can. Churn can be reduced, and should.

Impact of Churn prediction and Micro-campaigning (Source: Investaura, Lumata)